About

My name is Alex Green, I was born in Epping Hospital on 20th February 1975, spent the first few years of my life in ‘very well to do’ Theydon Bois and then the rest of my youth in less than attractive Chelmsford. So yes, I’m a real Essex man who grew up in the 80’s with all of the baggage of the era, although I hope I’ve evolved beyond my roots. After failing my A-Levels I went to do a foundation year at the University of Sussex and then made a terrible decision to enrol on an engineering degree. I scraped through a pass and then spent my early 20’s bumming a living doing odd jobs. Then progressing to an IT support role in a office, which I hated and contributed greatly to my mental health struggles. After quitting I went self employed and things improved. Fortunately I met my wonderful wife and together we lived, worked and brought up our children in Brighton for the next 20 odd years.

I’ve done a lot of different things from odd jobs, to running a shop and ending up in IT and never felt that I’ve found the right career. A lot of my choices came down to being a good provider for my family, filling a stereotype left over from the repressed post-war generation my parents came from. So being happy didn’t really enter into the equation as long as I was earning, but there was a cost to my mental health which has led to several dark seasons over the past 25 years.

In 2018 we moved and now I live near Eastbourne with my wife and 4 children, no pets allowed. I started a new job which then got trampled on by a global pandemic, fortunately I’ve remained employed and was able to continue working from home.

In November 2020 after a cancer diagnosis my midlife crisis went into full overdrive, a lot of things happened which made me evaluate what the hell I was doing with my life!

Escaping from a bonkers religious cult in 2021 (family safely out too, despite the cult leaders best efforts to hurt us) I realised that if you don’t ever try and achieve some of your ambitions, they will never happen. We had spent so much time being downtrodden and trying to serve and please other people that we lost our own sense of identity, we are now getting back to being who we should be without any religious interference.

Just to add to the joy of dealing with religious zealots wishing to destroy us I have been dealing with the consequences of chronic kidney disease. I was pushed over the edge of my emotional repression to actually have a go at some of the things I’ve dreamt about trying for so long. I had some counselling and out of the conversations came a realisation that I should go and do a stand up comedy course, which I did in July 2021. Although my health has limited my comedy career, I have been able to do some podcasting and I have a substack for writing.

Weirdly I’ve become one of those people who would say being seriously ill has saved my life.

I’ve always dreamed of performing on stage to earn a living, writing sketches, or broadcasting waffle into the ether and although I’m nowhere in the grand scale of things at the moment, you never know. It has been great to start exploring myself and meeting some interesting people along the way.

Now, I try to be creative when I can posting articles, performing and podcasting when I get the opportunity. Fitting everything around my family and work commitments can be challenging. I hope that my slow output will build up into something I can enjoy and share with others of a like minded disposition.