Testimonials
(1) - Mrs McKinney, a practising psychotherapist in Suffolk, writes:
"Every one of us has their own unique life story to tell. It is one thing to compile a chronology of memories but quite another to assemble them in an interesting way, which can enrich our lives and subsequently those of our family and friends.
Clive, with whom I have worked since 26.07.19, is, I believe, the perfect person to help you accomplish this task. He is a gifted writer, whose input will help bring your story to life.
He is personable with a great sense of humour and a deep interest in what makes people tick.
Administratively, he is quick, efficient and well-organised, thus providing good value for money.
Above all, Clive is totally trustworthy, honest, ethical and reliable."
"And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time."
[T.S. Eliot]
(2) - Mr Pesek a Software Developer and Consultant living in Cambridge writes:
"I have known and worked with Clive for more than a year both on a book I am writing and as a consultant - how time has flown. He is extremely enthusiastic about any story that I’ve put on paper and provides an abundance of encouragement and praise even for the first nimble attempts I’ve made! He always comes back with very useful feedback and ideas on how to move my book forwards.
This has helped me a lot pushing through that invisible barrier of putting the first lines of the story on to paper.
He has a good sense of humour and always takes interest in the story. He sometimes shares stories out of his life and his own book as an inspiration. I found them intriguing and very well written. He is highly organized and takes great care about privacy too. With Clive, your secrets are safe!"
(3) - Mr Feast a qualified, working professional in Cambridgeshire with an Honours Degree in Photography & a Foundation Degree in Professional Photography writes:
"I have known and worked with Clive on a mostly weekly basis since our first session together on Friday, 28.02.14.
I can most certainly vouch for his honesty, trustworthiness and efficiency. Clive is a man of his word, and always pays his bills on time. All of our tuition sessions have been very different, and great fun for both of us.
I started off advising Clive on how best to build up and use all of his now very extensive range of hardware including cameras, lenses, tripods and other digitising equipment. In addition to this, Clive has two A3 scanners, one high resolution A4 photo-scanner, and more specialist back-lit negative-scanning equipment with all of the professional software to go with it.
From the very start, Clive, previously a keen "analogue" photographer, who developed his own negatives and made his own prints, has concentrated on learning as much as he possibly can about taking "professional" digital photos and then using the very latest software for post-capture editing. He has a huge library of books on the subject of photography and book-design and does his very best to keep up with the latest developments in kit, software and techniques by reading right across the field on the Web.
Myself and Clive are continuing to work together on how best to create the final, print-ready PDFs that will show off all of the resulting digital images of both photos and documents in printed books to their very best effect.
One of the things that distinguishes Clive from all of the very many other people I have coached is his great interest in preserving old photos and documents in the most professional and archivally-correct way. I am very confident that he will handle and "process" any documents and photos that you entrust to him very carefully indeed – one example of this being that he will be using special nitrile gloves or "finger-cots" to handle anything you give him – and, if you choose to ask him to organise some or all of your old documents and photos, I am sure that you will be very happy indeed with the professional format that you will receive them back from him. The archivally-correct enclosures will help preserve your original documents and photos for very much longer.
We are also setting up a whole series of "Manuals" together that will cover every single aspect of how he works (kit, software and work-flow) so that I or someone else can then always take over in case that is ever needed to finish any of the books.
Clive is someone who often prefers to do things his own way so as to have much greater freedom from other people's (software and other) constraints. The best example of this is his website and his own first class software, which were all created over many years with the help of a professional database developer and coder. Once logged in, you can now add, gather and organise all of the information you could possibly want to include in any printed autobiography or memoir.
I can most certainly recommend Clive for the very great care he takes in everything he does, and his insistence on doing everything just as well as he possible can. He and I are both perfectionists!
I am sure that you will have lots of fun together and end up with really wonderful books that you and your family and friends can cherish and be immensely proud of. I am also sure that his honesty and ethics would never allow him to overcharge you or charge for any unnecessary work."
(4) - I.T. Consultant and neighbour in Suffolk, Mr Emerton, writes:
"I have known Clive since he moved in next door in April 2015 and I have always found him to be cheerful, helpful and very friendly. I regard him as completely trustworthy, a clear sign of that being that I have left him my house-key and my alarm security code when my family and I have travelled abroad for several weeks at a time. He checked the property from the outside once a day and only went in to move the accumulated mail away from sight and then reset the alarm.
I gave him a box of old photos and an album of photos to digitise against a receipt and I received them all back in exactly the same condition that they were in when I had left them with him. The digital images taken were excellent.
Clive gave me a clear break-down of how he had spent his time and I was very happy that it was slightly below what I had expected to pay.
I also know that he has been constantly improving his photographic and I.T. hardware, software and general skill-set during all of this time, as I have often been to his house and seen his overall set-up and his great "library" of specialist books myself.
I would have no hesitation in recommending him, as I know him to be very careful and conscientious in all that he does."
(5) - Mr Hardy, Database Developer and Coder living and working in Cambridgeshire, writes
"I first started working for Clive in January 2016, when I was tasked with teaching Clive programming and database design so he could develop his "Memories" application plus a few other minor applications.
We worked together every week for many months at his home and then changed to working remotely, sometimes more than once a week.
Over the next 3 years we worked on his application and, over time, my work with Clive changed from solely training and mentoring him to developing major features on his application.
After 3 years of working with Clive, I had to stop working for him due to other commitments but, by this time, Clive had become proficient at supporting his own application and my 20 years of secure application development was no longer needed.
During my time with Clive, I found him a perfect client. He was always very professional and paid my invoices on the same day I sent them to him (many clients are a lot more problematic to work with). He was always keen to learn, and would spend many hours between our sessions reading up on areas of development. I was always impressed by his work ethic and his attention to his clients' security and personal data, going above and beyond what even banks I have worked with would do!
The application code is stored at a private offsite GitHub repository.
I have no doubt that Clive would do everything he can for all his clients and that their personal data would be 100% secure with his application. I have worked for over 20 years writing secure applications, including handling credit card details. Clive was adamant that everything that could be done to keep his client photos, documents and other data secure was taken.
I have recommended Clive to people I know and would do so again without hesitation to anyone I speak to."
(6) - I.T. Consultant living and working in Cambridgeshire, Mr Chivers, writes:
"I have known Clive since 2007 and have been helping him with his I.T. hardware and software since 10.03.08.
During all of this time, Clive has asked me to build up, maintain and update what is now a complex but very solid system of various PCs and a web server that I have personally built for him from the most appropriate, individually-chosen and purchased brand new components.
Clive is constantly adding to, and strengthening, his I.T. system along with its very many peripherals and both he and I regularly ensure that all appropriate software and anti-malware are installed and regularly updated.
Clive has automated daily backups and he has also impressed me greatly with how regularly and professionally he manually backs up all of his data, using encryption for all three of his separate and differently-located off-site backups. Many of the medium-sized companies I work with professionally don't do half as good a job as Clive does as an individual.
His last job was in Zurich working for a British Bank and he has told me that he had no less than ten years of training and experience in Swiss Banking Secrecy there. He consequently takes confidentiality extremely seriously – and he certainly has the best paper-shredder I have ever seen!
For this reason, he insisted on building and hosting his own web server just in order to add in an extra layer of confidentiality for all of his clients.
During all of these very many years of working together, Clive has always paid me extremely promptly and he has always been very organised and administratively efficient.
I know that Clive has also worked for many years with his photographic coach and with another professional database developer and coder in order to build up his skills and also to create his own self-designed website and proprietary software.
I also know that he started working with a practising psychotherapist as of July 2019. This was to ensure that he improves all of his "people skills" and becomes as attentive and empathetic a listener as possible.
All in all, I believe Clive to be a very "safe" and friendly person to deal with and, after all of the immense amount of both time and money that he has invested in preparation over the years, I am very confident that he will do an excellent job for all of his clients.
Finally, I would add that I have found him to be completely trustworthy and I know that he always tries to "do the right thing by everyone" and he is also a pleasure to work with."