Jonathan Hopkins has had a chequered career, working variously as a delivery boy, riding instructor, relief postman, Butlins cashier, shipping-container cleaner, tobacconist's assistant, bulk tanker loader, wallpaper salesman and fitted kitchen designer. Eventually he settled down to run a small saddlery business with wife Elsa while mucking-out stables and working in an office for good measure.

But the lure of writing, which saw him labour over two unfinished books as a young man, proved too strong. Walls of Jericho, a novel set in the early 1800's, took three years to complete. Jonathan blames the choice of subject on his late father for willing him a boxful of historical swashbucklers, and Bernard Cornwell for writing 'Sharpe.' Of course, a lifetime's association with horses might have had something to do with it.

Born and brought up in the Vale of Glamorgan in South Wales, he still lives there.