Tom Pickard was born in Newcastle in 1946. His father was a railwayman. As the bulge babies grew up through what pass for schools in the North East Tom was moved to the lowest stream of a secondary modern school. Since he received so little encouragement in school it was not surprising that he left with his friends at the age of fourteen. ‘Work was very scarce, but I enjoyed the dole, it gave me time to read and learn to see things to understand people better than if I had been doped by work.’

Black Dwarf (1969)