Tim Bradford

TRUTH: I'm a writer, illustrator and artist. At least, those are things that I do. Most of the time I'm an illustrator/cartoonist for When Saturday Comes and The Guardian. Every few years I write a book and do lots of drawings for it. In the rest of the available time I create wang-eyed pop art paintings. That's when I'm not tramping the streets of London looking for musical instruments, old bookshops or lost rivers, or hanging out with the kids, or touring the Midwest of the USA with my wife as part of a fictional country-folk duo.

I move with my family between North London and Co. Clare in Ireland, depending on weather patterns and how my trees are doing.

LIES: At university I had a brief but passionate affair with Glenda Jackson but had to knock it on the head when I was asked to captain the England rugby team. A year later my first novel was snapped up by a top UK publisher but I declined to go ahead with the deal, reasoning that the novel was dead. A successful dual career in both advertising and the City of London left me rich beyond my wildest dreams. However, I hid all the money in a field and jacked in my jobs to concentrate on my true passion - teaching punk guitar to retired businessmen.