About the Author: Frank Peter Hinks

Birth and Family Background

I was born in Surrey on 8th July 1950, the eldest son of Henry John Hinks and Patricia May Hinks (ńee Adams).  The Hinks family is a modest middle class family with small businesses going back to at least October 1618 when the first Julius Hinks obtained a licence to trade as a collarmaker in Northleach Gloucestershire.  The only business to survive from earlier centuries is Hinks & Sons Removals which was founded by my great-great-grandfather John (George) Hinks in 1863 : it has devolved in a different branch of the family.  The family is not entirely lacking in persons of distinction: the first cousin of my great-great-great-grandfather Caleb Hinks (their mothers were sisters) was Sir John Rolt (1804-1871) who left school at 13, was apprenticed in the wool trade, self-educated, called to the Bar at 30 and yet went on to become a Chancery QC, Conservative MP, Attorney-General and Lord Justice of Appeal in Chancery.  In his memoirs (without naming her) he tells of Caleb's sister, Mary Hinks, who went out to stay with his parents in Calcutta and married a wealthy merchant: on her second marriage she joined the ranks of the Landed Gentry (the land was purchased from trade in the Far East) severing all relations with the family (including Sir John Rolt!). 

My father after serving as a piper in the Gordon Highlanders refused to return to his parents’ menswear business. Failing in his ambition to become a nonconformist clergyman he worked for Thomas Cooks, the travel agents.  My three brothers have had varied careers : Bob founded and was Managing Director of Asylum Models and Effects, one of the top special effects model makers in the country; Andrew is possibly the only person in the world to make his living by making jack-in-boxes; Terry, after getting a First in Economics at St John's Cambridge became a nonconformist clergyman.

Education and Early Ambitions

I was brought up and was educated in Bromley, Kent attending Hayes (George Lane) Primary School and Bromley Grammar, the same school as the rock star Peter Frampton (who was in my year).

According to my great-aunt Dora, as a young child I was watching Perry Mason on TV when I said that that was what I was going to be when I grew up.  Although no doubt true I have no recollection of this.  My earliest recalled ambition was to become a writer: as a child I had a strong conviction that my destiny was to make my fortune through books and as a result from time to time would start writing detective stories or novels, sadly with little persistence and no great discernible talent.  I recall no ambition to become an artist, although I did have a painting of a Viking long ship included in an exhibition in Bromley Library at the age of 10.

Around my 16th birthday I decided to go to Oxford University.  As a result, I plucked up courage and went to see the Headmaster (a rather distant man who only spoke to Prefects and Oxbridge candidates).  He arranged for me to do my Oxford Entrance Exams and I completed my UCAS application form (Oxford was the only university I ever applied to).  In December 1966 I was offered a place at St Catherine's College conditional on the national university minimum of 2 E grades at A level and Use of English.  In the event I got 3 As.  Postponing my entry for 1 year I retook the Entrance Examination and got an Open Scholarship.  At around this time I also wrote a full length children's adventure novel: fortunately no one was prepared to publish this pale imitation of Enid Blyton.

My 4 years up at Oxford were academically not unsuccessful (of the 200 who went up to read law in my year I was one of only two who got First Class Degrees in both Finals and the BCL).  Creatively it was a barren period.  Part of me thought little of my ability for passing exams and after coming down I spent time trying to learn the recorder (with no musical talent apart from dancing I did not persist) drawing and painting (persisting for not much longer than the recorder) and writing poetry with which I did persist until after I started the Ramion stories, at one stage even sending them for critical assessment: the examiner found them a reasonably enjoyable interlude from reality: I had no problem with the technical nature of modern poetry but had no affinity with its content.

Career at the Bar

I joined Lincoln's Inn winning a Hardwicke Entrance Scholarship and  Mansfield/Jenkins Major Scholarship.  I was called to the Bar in July 1973 and had pupillage with Gavin Lightman (the leading Chancery litigation junior, later a successful QC and High Court Judge) and Brain Morcom (a tax specialist who by unattractive example put me off artificial tax avoidance schemes).  In July 1974 I joined the chambers of Charles Sparrow QC at 13 Old Square (the same chambers as Gavin Lightman) and have remained there ever since albeit chambers has migrated to 6 New Square, adopted the name Serle Court and become one of the three most successful Chancery/Commercial sets.

I started practice at a time of economic difficulty but within 2 years had a sufficient practice to enable me to buy a modest flat in Barnsbury, Islington.  Eventually I specialised in Domestic and International Trusts, Land Law and Partnership.  I have acted for the Royal Family.  Other clients include the trustees of Dukes, Marquises and other member of aristocracy and the world's most substantial commercial fortunes.  I became a QC in 2000 with immediate success and am currently one of the most successful Chancery QCs.  Recent cases include (1) Brown v Executors of the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret[2008] WTLR 425: resisting the unsealing of the Royal Wills; (2) Roberts v Swangrove Estates Limited [2008] Ch 439: establishing the Queen's title to the bed of the River Severn on the basis of adverse possession : (3) Crown Estate Commissioners v Roberts[2008] P&CR 255: establishing the Queen's title to a substantial part of the coastline of Pembrokeshire and resisting successfully a claim to franchise and manorial rights; (4) Lady Henrietta St. George et al. v. Sir Jack Hayward et al. [2006-2010] the long running and bitterly fought dispute over Freeport the second largest port in the Bahamas, including 8 days in the Bahamian Court of Appeal in February 2010; and (5) Re Q a trust case heard before Ground C.J. in Bermuda in March 2010.  In 2008 I was made Bencher of Lincoln's Inn.

Marriage/Children

In 1980 I decided it was time to get married.  I sold my Barnsbury flat, bought a Georgian house in Canonbury, purchased antique furniture at auction (including a brass double bed) and started going to dancing classes.  At around the same time I wrote a comic novel which (again fortunately) remains unpublished. I was match maked by an Oxford friend.  I met Susan (an abstract painter) in December 1981.  We got engaged on holiday in Ireland in April 1982 and had a formal marriage of some style in the following July.  The day before we married we sold Susan's house in Brixton.  In May 1983 we sold my Islington house and bought The Old Vicarage, Shoreham, Kent, a rambling house which dates from around 1530.  In 1984 Julius was born.  In 1985 Alexander was born.  In 1986 we exercised a right of pre-emption over The Old Vicarage cottage.  In 1987 Benjamin was born.  In 1988 we bought a 4½ acre water meadow, an island in the River Darent, restoring the lake and boathouse and building two tree houses: the source of inspiration for the garden in the land of Ramion.  Currently we divide our time between The Old Vicarage and a former violin factory on the South Bank.

The Ramion Stories

With the birth of our children at last I had an audience for my storytelling.  At first Julius was content with one story (which was based on Wind in the Willows).  He gradually became more and more demanding until he wanted a different story every night.  But sometimes he would help.  "Dad tonight I want a story about the witch Griselda" (who had purple hair like his mother and wanted to eat him and his brothers) "and Snuggle" (the ferocious misnamed family cat).  He would then start the story leaving me to take it over without any idea where it was going or how I was going to be able to stop him and his brothers from being eaten.  With constant storytelling we developed characters and plots and various tricks for getting out of impossible situations with no regard for normal literary conventions of plausibility.

1990 was a fantastic year of practice for me at the Bar with cases for the Duke of Westminster (the celebrated "working class" case with leaders in both The Times and Guardian) and for the Crown Estate Commissioners.  In 1991 thanks to the property recession my practice went dead and I decided to fulfil my long neglected literary ambitions by writing the stories. 

For reasons which now escape me I wrote the stories in three volumes of what I regarded as blank verse but which one publisher described as "something between prose and poetry".  I thought that they were brilliant but this view was not shared by publishers.  I then rewrote them as short stories in substantially their present form but again they were repeatedly rejected by publishers.  Not deterred I decided that what they needed was illustration.

As a professional abstract painter my wife would not have dreamt of turning her hand to illustration.  I thought that I could manage a few pin men, but faced with the prospect of my wife's scorn, I decided that I had better try to be a little more ambitious.  Between 1992 and 1995 I produced 7 stories with a total of nearly 150 full page black and white drawings which were sold in aid of charity as part of the Shoreham Festival of Music with me telling the stories to enthusiastic audiences of adults and children.  Under my wife's critical eye I developed a style of my own.  Some of the illustrations even won her approval, although sadly not the approval of publishers.  In 1995 I decided that modern stories needed to be illustrated in colour.  My wife suggested gouache (opaque watercolour).  Sine 1995 I have produced over 400 full page paintings illustrating 14 stories.  In 2002 I was offered a one person exhibition for 117 of my paintings at The Chapel Gallery, Hall Place, Bexley and this endorsement seemed the opportunity to produce the stories in full colour on a commercial scale.  In 2003 four stories (as individual stories and the collection Ramion) were published and displayed in the window of Foyles.  In 2004 a further four stories (again as individual stories and the collection Realm of Ramion) were published with an enthusiastic half page article in The Daily Telegraph.  In 2005 a further four stories (again as individual stories and the collection Swords of Ramion) were published.

In 2006 at last I became a commercially published author and illustrator, but in Korean not English.  The first four stories were published by Marobul, a Korean publisher which specialises in illustrated books.  The Korean designer responded wonderfully to the stories.   The 2009 edition of The Kingdom of the Deep (the 13th story in the Ramion series) drew on the Korean designs, but sought  to raise the series to a new level. Story no. 14 The Blizzard Wizard is in the same style

FPH
30.6.10

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