DANN FARRELL

Born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, a mere lifetime ago, he studied Philosophy and Psychology at university before teaching for two years in a deprived conflict-area secondary school at the height of the internecine conflict known as the Troubles. While teaching, he drove a taxi in the evenings, at weekends and during school holidays, regularly contending with riots, burning buses and bombings, as well as rocket and mortar attacks on the troops and police. Dann survived these constant hazards, including highjackings at gunpoint on various occasions, and once narrowly missed being blown to bits by a car bomb in which others were killed. So, pursuing a quieter life, he, along with a schoolfriend, an Olympic athlete, opened a successful health club, where he remained for five years before being drawn to another passion—antiques and fine art, which he went on to trade worldwide for almost thirty years. These years, during which he bought and sold an eclectic range of items, from the conventional to the eccentric; from antiquities through art to architectural masterpieces, provided a lot of the experiences which inform the background to his Art and Antique Thrillers.