His father, Norman, was a Canon Residentiary at Gloucester Cathedral until 2002, when he retired. No, he wasn't fired. Matthew was brought up, indeed, as the son of a gun.
Otherwise, read on!
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Born in Sussex, 1967, to a
clergy family, his arrival was heralded by a cartoon in the local paper
suggesting that his mother, Janet, was about to bear three other sons named
Mark, Luke and John. This did not occur, for which he was heartily grateful and
no doubt so was she.
His father, Norman, was a Canon Residentiary at Gloucester Cathedral until 2002, when he retired. No, he wasn't fired. Matthew was brought up, indeed, as the son of a gun. |
| Along with his two sisters Bec and Liz his childhood was spent on the Isle of Wight
and in various parts of South Hampshire. Living in sundry vicarages for most of that
time he became adept at dealing with questions such as "Are you going to be a
monk when you grow up?"; "Is your dad a Catholic or Protestant?"
(think about that one for a bit); and "Don't
you sound like your father?"
First moment of fame was appearing on Central TV's Blockbusters quiz in about 1984. He got numerous questions wrong but won £205, and had several more questions subtly edited as he was too impertinent to Bob Holness. |
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This heady moment was followed by leading his school team to complete disaster on BBC radio Top Of The Form, indeed so badly did they do that the whole series was halted shortly after, and has not been heard since.
| Matthew went to University
at Durham, where he read
Zoology and attended Van Mildert
College. There he, along with a few colleagues, skated the thin ice of
satire with the ground-breaking publication Unknown Pleasure. This offended
almost everyone, and lost large sums of money. It remains one of his proudest
achievements. In recent years he has attempted to relive these
heady days by intermittently contributing improprietous material to the tongue-in-cheek
staff magazine Desk Jockey at the Isle of Wight
Council.
Right: a single frame from the epic 'Dr Filth and the Zombies of Death' published by Unknown Pleasure in 1986. Featuring Ruth A Hutson (Now Ruth D'Alessandro) as Letitia and Dr A. von S. Bradshaw as 'the Monster' |
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After leaving Durham fairly hastily he worked voluntarily for the British Trust for Conservation Volunteers, for want of anything better to do. A dedicated volunteer, during this time he volunteered to go out with Babs, who later on volunteered to marry him, in a ceremony which involved riding off into the sunset on a large ATV quad bike.
Matt's lovely girlfriend,
Cat |
Eventually Hampshire County Council were rash enough to offer him a job as ranger, and were able to get rid of him five years later having made him Senior Ranger and then Site Manager of Westwood Woodland Park, Southampton. He then worked for the National Trust as Property Manager at Wicken Fen National Nature Reserve until June 1997. During this time he learnt about how to live in the country, wear a tweed jacket and talk about 'dirty carrots' with a straight face. He also became father to Bill. |
| He was then employed
by Basildon District Council as Manager of Countryside Services. Despite
knowing nothing about boats except how to get onto
the Gosport Ferry without paying, he was also in charge of Wat Tyler
Marina and the National Motorboat Museum. In summer 1998 his second son,
Jack was born an Essex boy.
After this merry-go-round of jobs, in February 1999 he arrived, and still remains, initially as Senior Countryside Officer, and eventually as Countryside Manager, back on the Isle of Wight; more or less where his adventures began. |
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His marriage to Babs ended in 2003, but they both still remain in contact and live not far apart on the Isle of Wight.
Media triumphs include appearing in the Isle of Wight County Press as 'Michelle Chadwick' - complete with photograph; reviewing the morning papers on BBC Radio Solent and BBC Radio Cambridgeshire; appearing on TV's Countryfile programme talking knowledgeably about several things he knows nothing about; having a picture he did not take credited to him in The Guardian; hosting a TV crew from Channel 4 who insisted on spraying leopard urine all over the place; being the subject of a vitriolic (but quite fair) attack by the famed 'Twitcher in the Swamp' in British Wildlife Magazine; and publicly supervising (from a great distance) the removal of about five years worth of foetid sewage from a levitating manhole in Basildon. Surely the only way is up?
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On holiday on the Isle of Wight, Summer 1996. A bit older and fatter than the picture above, and yes, with shorter hair - and less of it. This marks the start of a hair-reducing trend which continues to this day. |
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Wild partying with girlfriend
Cat, 2003 |
Matt & sister Bec, 2003 |
Matthew
and sister Rebecca living on the Isle of Wight in about 1974 when they
were both young and cute
Image (c)
Chatsoft 1998 (p)Unknown Pleasure 1986
