My name is Steven Richard Gibson I was born on Friday 7th June 1957 at Princess Mary’s Hospital, Newcastle upon Tyne. I was born with epilepsy which hampered my school years. I started school, throughout which I was bullied, at five years old with a scrap of paper with my name on it because I couldn’t spell my name.I left school in 1973 with absolutely no qualifications, the product of an education that failed and discriminated against me. Little did I know that upon leaving school my battle with discrimination had only started. I embarked upon my job hunting with enthusiasm and vigour only to find that my employability was non-existent. It seemed that potential employers did not fully understand or were not prepared to take a ‘risk’ in employing people with problems such as mine, even though it was more then obvious that I had the required skills needed to the jobs I had applied for.

Anyone out there who is experiencing similar problems to those I’ve mentioned be at school or in your search for employment, I understand and sympathise with your dilemma.

I started writing creatively in 1985, I was writing solidly for 2 years until 1987, during this period I had several poems printed in local publications. I had only been writing for 1 year when I was asked to do my first commission, the poem I wrote was called Beast, I got paid £10 for this, but it was viewed as too political because it was for a church magazine.

I had a quiet period from the end of the 80s until 2000 when I had one of my poems used on a soundtrack of a movie, the poem was called Sleep Giants Sleep. In the spring of 2003, a copy of one of my poems called
“A Candle Burns” is now on show in London.