Introductory Information about Symon

"I have lived with my wife Sue in Redbourn since 2003, and became a parish councillor in 2019.

I was born and brought up in Essex, before studying Chemistry and Biochemistry at Nottingham University. After completing my studies I lived in a pit village in South Yorkshire during the Miner's Strike, which first drew me to politics and the Labour Party.

I keep myself busy, as in addition to the parish council I work with a charity that helps people with Parkinson's, help run a local Support Group, and participate in research into the condition carried out by Oxford University. I am a patron of a charity that helps the mentally ill through the power of music; am involved with Active in Redbourn and Neighbourhood Watch; and am guided by Voltaire and the "efficacy of reason".

I have a number of published books. Greatly admire the novels of Dickens and Dostoyevsky and the poetry of Keats, Yeats, Frost and Paul Verlaine. I love Pink Floyd and opera, support Leicester Tigers, and my motto is lovingly borrowed from Mother Theresa: "Let no-one come to you without leaving better and happier" (although like Voltaire I'm not sure whether God exists)."