Career ride shotgun for Dudley Co-op, work bars on Dudley Zoo, train as a clinical chemist in Birmingham and ultimately develop and run a specialist unit in Abu Dhabi, which investigated infertility.
Return to the UK in 1985 heralded tragedy as his father was murdered following the Libya bombing which was later described in “A Witness For Peace” (1994)
Retrained as a social worker 1988-90 working through the grades to manage a busy children’s centre in Sandwell before switching to community social work in Walsall in 1994 handling complex child protection cases.
Began writing while in Leicester in the early 1980s. Has written several novels, over 200 short stories, and a travelogue as well as “A Witness For Peace”. Last Virion Standing describes his experiences living with hepatitis C after becoming infected by contaminated blood products in 1975, something he wasn’t to discover until 2000.
1992 set up The Kates Hill Press primarily as a vehicle for “A Witness For Peace”. Venture generated interest from other local authors including Clarice Hackett and Tossie Patrick resulting in this small press to provide Fiction and Social History from the Black Country and West Midlands. Poetry was soon added to the remit. Originally producing paperbacks the catalogue was expanded by publishing booklets. The need to have fairly large print runs to reduce unit costs in the early days reduced the capacity to publish further paperbacks. To continue publishing full length books Clarice Hackett persuaded Greg Stokes to use the comb bound format. Several books were produced this way and national author Carol Hathorne joined the Kates Hill Press stable of authors in this period.
In 2007 print on demand became available to small presses where the unit cost was uninfluenced by run length. This provided for many more full length titles and colour covers. All but one of the comb bound titles have now been re-released in paperback format, the latest being The Gulf by Greg Stokes
Catalogue now includes 66 books and 5 audio books. Greg Stokes also has 4 ebooks on Kindle. Now publishes 28 authors. “Story of the Week” on the original .co.uk website provided a platform for another 5 authors.
Publishes two series; A Pocketful of Memories - bygone times and places brought to life through the words of local authors; Black Country Classics - works long out of print made available to the modern audience.
2016, third series “Tranklements” launched - anthologies of short pieces by established KHP authors, also provide a platform for new writers. 3 new authors introduced in the first title “Music box of Tranklements.”
Current website kateshillpress.com provide for on line sales, a facility that is extended to Black Country Theatre - tickets for their performances, Rocket Cottage Studios – CDs, and Lamp Tavern Live – tickets for the Blues gigs at the Lamp Tavern in Dudley Greg Stokes presents The Blues Show on Hope Radio 87.9FM and Provides short stories for the weekly Second City Tales on the same station.
In 2018 The Kates Hill Press produced its first book with colour photographs, the History of Holy Trinity Church, Old Hill by Edward Chitham and Jackie Kendall.
The latest titles, which are to be launched at Wolverhampton Literature Festival in February 2021 are:-
The New Brutalism, a collaboration of the photography of Tom Hicks and the poetry of Shaun Patrick Hand.
Poems of Hope, an inspirational collection of poems born in the Covid-19 pandemic by Ian Henery.
The Gulf, a collection of short stories by Greg Stokes comparing the Black Country with the oil rich United Arab Emirates where he worked for 3 years.
