About the Author
Kevin Grozier was born in Guildford, Surrey in 1949 and there followed a somewhat turbulent childhood where he grew up appreciating the peace provided by the lakes, rivers and countryside of the Surrey Hills around the small town of Godalming.
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He spent much of his adult working life in the Insurance industry, starting in London, but still yearning for the sanctuary of quiet open spaces.
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He was delighted therefore, when in 1973, the company he worked for de-centralised to Hampshire and following a period where he set up home in Southampton he finally settled in the market town of Ringwood on the edge of The New Forest where he has lived since 1987.
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Prior to moving to Ringwood Kevin wrote poetry only sporadically. His career did not really provide or leave room for material to provide either opportunity or inspiration. Life, working and bringing up the three “adorable instant children” he acquired when he married Lin left little room for the kind of “idol contemplation” he often indulged in, when he was younger; even as a child!
​​​His lifelong chosen sport fishing did however provide much of the countryside influence and experience for his first two books, “ Avon Days & Stour Ways” and “A Keepnet Full of Dreams.”
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Following the close of his “corporate” career he began more and more to notice the growing threats and pressures on the English countryside that he so revered. Starting a gardening business in 1995 accelerated this growing unease and his focus shifted when he began to notice the degradation of, not only the countryside itself, but tragically the decline of its rivers and streams and particularly the globally important chalk streams of Southern England. Until then his earlier poems had been based almost entirely on relationships and his own erratic and variable view of life.
Many environmental poems were included in “The Lost Fisherman” & Other Poems”. When the four grandchildren who have “put such a shine on an otherwise grey old age” arrived, it was to focus his mind far more sharply on just how much of this idyllic, non-urban and quintessentially English landscape would survive for their own grandchildren to experience and enjoy! Some, though not all of the work in “Lockdown Poems,” obviously charts the extraordinary few years of unprecedented circumstances and tragedy experienced during the COVID pandemic but this latest book, published in 2022, is also a mixture of environmental concerns, self examination once again and his irreverent humour mixed with pathos regarding the other global epidemic called old age!
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Kevin still lives in Ringwood with his incredibly supportive wife Lin, is still writing and values the company of his now adult stepchildren, a wonderful son in law and four adored granddaughters. He still fishes; when old age and weather conditions allow and enjoys a small cadre of friends that he insists must have been subliminally chosen and are so important to him because they all have qualities and strengths he doesn’t!
KJGrozier