Gordon comes from Napier.
Napier is a small city nestled half way along the East Coast of New Zealand's North Island.
Napier is known for it’s fine red wine, Art Deco buildings and the earthquake that destroyed it in 1931.

As a boy, Gordon didn't do very well at school.
He has astigmatism an eye condition which means he could see the blackboard but the small writing on it blurred.
This condition was not diagnosed until he was in his early 30s. Naturally, he sat at the back of the class and failed. Boo Ho.

When he left school, Gordon took up a career as a Draughtsperson, eventually became a Design Engineer
and also delved in to Graphic-Art setting up his graphics business 'Gordon's Grafix'. All this with an undiagnosed eye condition is not bad huh!

Gordon also practiced Judo from age 5 until 25 when he finally got injured and quite the gentle art.
You know the sort of injury, that moment when you say to yourself, “that hurt” and deep down you know it was a bad one. Ouch!
Judo gave Gordon a good sense of discipline and body movement and his injury gave him a greater sense of body awareness and inter-connectivity of the body's different parts.

At 25, his life hit a low when his first true love walked out on him saying, “You're boring”.
He agreed and was gutted. This left him with one of two choices, give up or do something about it and move on.
It also made him more aware of his depth of feeling which was a very good thing indeed.

Gordon tried lots of things he had wanted to do but never got around to like rafting, tramping and meditation to name a few.
The one thing he did that really changed his life was taking up public speaking and eventually theatre.

When Gordon first stood up to public speak, he was in front of a friendly group of about 24 guys at a Jaycee meeting.
All he had to say was “Hi! My name is Gordon” and then sit down.
Gordon managed to say “Hi, my name is Gorrr” and blacked out on his feet.
He came to, stumbled back to his seat and completed the statement the following week.
Two years later he was taking part in national Oratory and Debating.

Shortly after taking up public speaking, Gordon joined a local street theatre clown troupe called ‘The Raspberries and Lumpy Custards’.
The following year he formed a street theatre soap box oratory troupe called ‘The Soap Box Orators’ and next, got involved in local theatre.

When Gordon turned 28, he moved to Auckland and worked 5 days a week as a Design Engineer but most importantly spent most of his evenings and when workshops were available, weekends over the next 5 years attending drama training workshops, mainly at ‘The Theatre of Spontaneity’ but also at Auckland University and other places. During this time Gordon also produced several shows for Auckland University, Myth-on Theatre (his own company) and Encore Productions.

In 1988, Gordon quit engineering and hit the road as a storyteller

Gordon has toured New Zealand each year since then and has also toured in Australia once a year since 1991 through 2007.
Contact Gordon's Australian publicist 'School Performance Tours' (SPT) to find out more about his availability in Australia.

He has travelled through many English speaking countries storytelling, adventuring, occasionally wondering where he is, how he got there, what he's doing and mainly hoping someone will show him the way home or to his next adventure.

In other words, he's talked his way into some interesting places and cornered a few people who have had no choice but to listen to him.

As well as Storytelling, Gordon runs workshops for teaching Staff, Pupils and the public

In 2000, Massey Universities' Teacher Training Colleges Resource Centre, 'Kanuka Grove, published Gordon’s oral-language development manual 'ORACY'. Kanuka Grove ceased to exist in 2007 and Gordon now self publishes 'ORACY'

Gordon plans to release 'SPEAKING OUT', a manual to develop presentation skills for public speaker toward the end of 2008 and 'THE STORY TELLING BOOK' a manual to develop storytelling abilities toward the middle of 2009.
All three manuals are part of the 'TALKING UP A STORM' series

Gordon spends any spare time he has, writing and videoing for his up-coming manuals, painting, hiking/trekking the many tracks throughout New Zealand including most of the Great Walks (he has walked several of these 2 or 3 times) and walks the occasional track over-sea's when time and location permit, pottering on the old computer, developing this web site and his resources and dreaming.

Life is great and it just keeps getting better.