Jack Giles - Western Writer

     I was born in North Finchley, North London.

     Under my real name of Raymond Foster I attended St. John's Primary School in Britannia Road.

     I was into Westerns from the day I put on my first cowboy outfit and held my first six gun. Little did I know that, almost, 40 years on that kid would become a Western writer.

     Then there was the Saturday morning pictures at the local Odeon - six old pence for a cartoon, a serial and a film - the film or the serial and, sometimes, both were Westerns.

     As I grew older I was reading some of the best Western writers like Zane Grey, Frank C. Robertson, Frank Gruber, Luke Short and Louis L'Amour. And then, of course, there were the films - I think I may have seen just about every film made.

      In 1955 the family moved to Orpington, Kent and it was at Orpington County Secondary School for Boys (more commonly known as 'Charterhouse') that I got the urge to write. I did write a Western story during an English composition lesson that earned me a B+ but it did impress my English master, Mr Keeble. In fact, that story remained in my mind and years later would become the basis of a book called ' The Man From Labasque'.

      At school I had two ambitions. I wanted to go into the legal profession and to write - my headmaster told me to be serious.  Well, my first job was as an outdoor clerk with a firm of solicitors in Bromley, Kent and, eventually, became a Legal Executive and Managing Clerk in a London firm.

      As for writing - well, I wrote a couple of books and a lot of short stories that went nowhere.

      One Christmas my two eldest daughters gave me the first two books in George G. Gilman's Edge series.  They knew that I liked a good Western and asked why I hadn't written a Western. Well, as far as I knew, the Western genre was the domain of American writers. It was not until a short-lived 'Western Magazine' came out that I discovered that quite a number of Western writers came from various parts of the British Isles.

       So I decided that I would try to write one myself. 'Poseidon Smith: Vengeance Is Mine' was my first attempt at a Western. I wrote it in such a way that I believed that it was good enough to rank alongside the like of Edge, Breed, Apache and the rest of those Westerns that were written by a group of writers who were to become known as The Piccadilly Cowboys.  Unfortunately, I wrote my book at a time when publishers were closing the book on this particular genre.

        I was not put off.  I sent the manuscript to an agent and, while it was there, wrote to George G. Gilman for advice. The agent liked my book but said that there was no money in Westerns but suggested that I send the book to a publisher and I could mention their name. Almost, simultaneously, I received a letter from George G. Gilman suggesting the same publisher.

         'Poseidon Smith: Vengeance Is Mine' was accepted for publication by that publisher - Robert Hale Limited - under the Black Horse Western range.

          My biggest critic has not been my wife, Sandra who gives me all the encouragement in the world, but my mother. She has read every single book that I have written - she thinks that the best one is 'Coalmine' and it does still seem very popular twenty years on.

          On this site you will find all the books that I have written and the cover blurb. Plus a bit about the last few years and my future plans.