Matthew Saxton

The Cabochon is Matthew Saxton’s first novel but it comes after a lifetime of writing. His mother was the author Josephine Saxton and with the help of her cast-off Olivetti typewriter, he began writing stories and poems at the age of four.

He performed an early poem on BBC Radio Nottingham and published a story in an American college magazine before starting primary school. This early flowering of creativity went into hibernation, but in later life, he took up poetry again, publishing in various UK magazines.

Matthew’s main work as an author has come through his career as a developmental psychologist. In this capacity, he has published numerous scholarly articles and a book: Child Language: Acquisition and Development, now available in its 2nd edition from SAGE www.sagepub.com.

Besides life as an author, Matthew has tried many careers, some with greater success than others. At various times he has taught English in Japan, picked olives on Crete and sold ice cream on the beaches of southern France. He also spent 20 years working as an academic at the universities of Warwick, Royal Holloway, Westminster and UCL. Given this line of work, Matthew’s CV bristles with degrees – two Masters degrees from Edinburgh University and a doctorate from Oxford University. Not content with that, he upset the apple cart at the age of 50 by retraining as a nurse, thus adding yet one more degree to his armoury, this time from City University.

Matthew worked as a nurse for head & neck cancer patients for several years before running a vaccination centre during the pandemic. He has since retired to spend more time playing the piano, cycling and doting on his two grandchildren. A second novel about something completely different is on the way…..