Though my name is John Morris, since about the age of 8 most people have called me Mogs. I have lived in The Black Country for all my 66 years. Originally from Halesowen, I now live in Wollaston in Stourbridge. After working in IT at the Midlands Electricity Board for 30 years, I was given early retirement because of failing eyesight. I had been diagnosed with a congenital eye condition in 1989, which had caused my sight to slowly deteriorate. I have been classified as ‘severe sight impaired’ since about 2010. This has meant giving up a few hobbies and interests. My football playing ‘career’ was first to go in the early ‘90s, but I continued ‘dabbling’ with rugby for another 10 years or so, when a broken collarbone convinced me it was time to hang up the boots. I continued to show my lack of sporting prowess by zig-zagging up golf course fairways for a little while longer. While I had some sight my other passion was wargaming. I was a member of the Stourbridge Wargames Club for about 25 years. Luckily, I had always had an interest in creative writing so, since retiring this has filled more of my time. Although I seem to find myself mainly concentrating on producing silly poetry, I’ve had a go at novels, short stories and some short plays. I’ve even written a few dozen songs. I am a member of two writing groups in Stourbridge, Coach House Writers and Robin Woods Writers and I regularly perform at spoken word events. In 2018 I had my first book published called ‘Poems Your Parents Won’t Like’. This is a collection of about 50 poems suitable for ‘children’ up to the age of 100. Every poem has an illustration. These were drawn by a collection of various people including my 2 sons and half a dozen students from Stourbridge College of Art and Design. A year later my children’s novel called ‘Griff’ was published. Now I have a collection of Black Country dialect poems out called ‘A Black Country Chap’s Life Of Rhyme’ and 2023, will hopefully see the publication of another book of poetry for the younger reader called ‘Poems You Won’t Learn At School’. For more info take a look at my website. I also have a few poems available to listen to on Soundcloud and a couple floating about on Youtube. Website: www.johnnymogs.co.uk Soundcloud link – www.soundcloud.com/johnny-mogs Other Johnny Mogs books (click on a cover image for details)
APS BOOKS/APS PUBLICATIONS 