Sheil Land Associates Ltd.

 

Simon Kettlewell was born in Derby in the midlands. He has a Masters Degree in Social Sciences, and worked for fifteen years in the National Health Service, leaving in 1997 to live in Transylvania in central Romania. Here he worked with a mental health charity and travelled extensively in Eastern Europe, taking volunteers and supplies to Psychiatric Hospitals. He witnessed and worked to alleviate, terrible abuses of human rights against men and women in trusted care. In 2010 he began working with the international charity, Global Vision taking him to Kenya (Mombasa) to teach English to children in a deprived area of the city and more recently to Nepal where he worked with children in community centres and orphanages.

 

Simon's passion for Human Rights prompted him to begin to speak openly about his own experiences in mental health, his diagnosis of 'Bi Polar disorder', its impact for the individual and for those around them. As well as writing and travelling extensively, Simon has been the main carer for their four children, which even on the 'difficult' days has given him the best reason in the world to face them. He has been lucky where so many have not. 

 

Simon reviews the Sunday papers on Radio Devon from time to time and loves riding very large motor bikes. His writing has won him some accolades: in 1997-2001, he was short-listed for The New Writer, and the Ian St James Award. In 2000, he was a winner of the Harry Bowling Prize.

 

He lives with his wife, three daughters and son in Devon.