Simon was born in Teddington, Greater London in 1960, and studied and practiced Design Mechanical *B manufacturing engineering. He is a Chartered Engineer (C-Eng) and a member of the Institute of Mechanical Engineers (I-Mech E). He married his school sweetheart, Sarah Hancock in 1983. They have 3 children (two boys and a girl). And his acceptance of a job offer saw him and Sarah and children move to Raleigh North Carolina in 1994. Following a right-hemisphere stroke in 2013, Simon found the mathematics associated with his previous job too difficult and he sought early retirement/disability in 2015 and has since reinvented himself as a published author of two books – “Not So Green as Cabbage Looking” in 2019 and “Bad Rhymes No Reason” in 2022.