Owen Jones - An Author from Barry

Owen Jones was born and raised in Barry, South Wales where he lived with his family until he moved to Portsmouth after leaving Barry Boys Comprehensive School at the age of 18 in 1972. Previous education had been acquired at Colcot Primary and High Street Junior schools.

Owen Jones - An Author from Barry

After studying Russian Language and Soviet Studies at Portsmouth Polytechnic for four years, Owen moved to s'Hertogenbosch, N. Brabant in the Netherlands, where he lived for nine years doing many things including translation, but mostly he hitch-hiked.

It was so easy to get anywhere from the Netherlands, he says.

On returning to Barry in his early thirties, Owen joined the family construction company called Marlyn Cnstruction, which had been founded by  his father and stepmother, Colin and Lynn. Colin Jones was a well-known person in Barry in many circles. His three younger brothers, Gareth, Rhys and Huw were all early founders of the firm which stated in 1974.

At the age of 50, Owen went on a holiday that was to change his life dramatically yet again. He went to Thailand for the first time and immediately fell in love with it and a beautiful young woman whom he subsequently married.

Owen and his wife now life in a remote village in the north Thailand rice belt, where his wife was born and all her family live.

Not being able to work by law, he had to find something to do.

His first houghts turned to writing for the Internet, so he taught himself how to create a web site and started writing articles. This became something of a ful-time obsession culminating in 2010 when he wrote well over a thousand 500-word articles on various subjects.

However, in the background there was another project simmering and it had been doing so for at least five years. Owen had an idea for a book that he felt he had to write. He called it 'Behind The Smile' subtitled 'The Story of Lek, a Bar Girl in Pattaya'.

Owen and his wife had lived in Pattaya for more than 12 months and had frequently returned to the immensely popular seaside resort. He wanted to tell the story of some of the girls that he had become friendly with there. People whom his wife knew and still knows equally well.

It was a long process to get that book out. Too long, but he found that the story of Lek did not stop with just one book. It was just too long to fit, so he is currently writing a sequel probably to be called 'An Exciting Life'.

This makes the titles a bit long as they will be:

'Behind The Smile ~ The Story of Lek, a Bar Girl in Pattaya' Book One: Daddy's Hobby

and

'Behind The Smile ~ The Story of Lek, a Bar Girl in Pattaya' Book Two: An Exciting Life

Who knows? There may even be a third.

If you would like to read more about Owen Jones and his work, please go over to his web site and blog at: Owen Jones

Born in the Land of Song,
Living in the Land of Smiles.