Keith Ray was born in Cheshire in the North West of England, but has spent his entire adult life ‘down south’. He studied engineering at the University of Cambridge, where engineering was quaintly known as mechanical sciences. It was whilst studying engineering that he realised he did not want to be a career engineer, believing that in terms of engineering he was born at least 100 years too late! So instead he undertook post graduate studies as the University’s Judge Business School, gaining a PhD along the way. This was followed by a career in management consultancy, in which for the last 26 years of employment he set up and ran the internal consultancy within one of the world’s largest food businesses. Upon ‘retiring’ at the age of 56 he set up his own consultancy company, specialising in the food industries in China and Saudi Arabia, and becoming a founding director of three local consulting businesses in those regions.
Writing has always been a passion for him, and he has had two ‘incarnations’ as an author. The first, in the early days of his professional career, saw a series of twelve humorous books illustrated by his own cartoons. At the same time he regularly published cartoons in leading magazines and national newspapers. Later, work got in the way and the writing and cartooning were put on the ‘back burner’ until a few years ago. Since then he has published four books, all motoring or aviation related, whilst also writing the monthly history articles on marine engineering for The Marine Engineers Review, and The Marine Professional.
On a personal front, he has been married to his Chinese wife, who he met at university, for 45 years and they have one grown up son. They share their time between a riverside home in Marlow, on the Thames in Buckinghamshire, and a home on a wild headland in Cornwall with 180 degree views of the Atlantic Ocean. His passions include Jaguar cars (a passion inherited, along with some Jaguar cars, from his Father), Cornwall, Chinese antiques, industrial history, and travelling around the world. On a very personal note, the first present his wife ever gave him, on his birthday before they were married was the Lawrence Dalton book ‘Those Elegant Rolls-Royce’; there was something very prophetic there!
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