My First Day in Thailand

Meeting My Wife

21:15 on the 11th July, 2025, was the 21st anniversary of my first meeting with Neem, my wife. At the time, she was working in her cousin’s bar in Pattaya as the cashier, and believe it or not, she was the first Thai woman that I ever spoken to. Not only that, but the 11th was the first day I had ever spent in Thailand. It was love at first sight, and we have been inseparable ever since.

In 21 years, I doubt that we have spent more than 10 days apart, except for the month after we met when I had to return to Barry, Wales, to attend to my flat. I have adapted many of my experiences in Thailand, with Neem and her friends, and used them to write books like the Behind the Smile series, but none of the events in those books relates to her personally.

Daddy’s Hobby

She and her friends, especially an effervescent beauty actually called Lek were definitely the inspiration for the series Behind The Smile though. Non-writers usually doubt what I am going to tell you next, but it really is quite common. BTS was meant to be a single book, but Lek started to tell me what to write. I mean in my head. ‘The real’ Lek was never physically present during the writing process.

The Lek of the book would not get out of my head! That solitary first book became a trilogy; then a series of four, five, six and seven. It was only after the seventh volume that she departed for good.

Believe me or not, it’s up to you.

In those early days, I often asked after Lek, but no-one knew – such is the transient life in Pattaya. One day, someone told me that she had died a junky. I often wonder whether that was before or after ‘we’ finished the series.

If you want to know more, please try here:

https://bookshop.org/lists/behind-the-smile

I will only ever tell you the Truth as I witness it 🙂