Charles McSherry was born in Lanark in 1958 and was raised in Viewpark, a small housing estate, or “scheme” as it is known...

Charles McSherry was born in Lanark in 1958 and was raised in Viewpark, a small housing estate, or “scheme” as it is known locally, on the outskirts of the East End of Glasgow. He got the slightly odd, and occasionally embarrassing, nickname of Chic because his mother refused to allow anyone to call him Charlie, and since he hated the spelling “Chick”; Chic it became. It’s a peculiarly Glaswegian nickname shared by very few people, even in that part of the world, and it has proven to be a talking point all of his life. In short, he tends to get remembered.

He was educated in an all-boys Catholic school, his best marks being in English, and went to work in a factory at seventeen. After contracting tuberculosis and spending a year in hospital, he worked in an office until finally leaving day jobs behind to play guitar professionally in a rock band. He toured extensively for seven years before going back to the “real” world as a computer software salesman. Soon after that his band were offered a recording contract so he decided to keep a foot in both camps and start his own IT business in order to maintain his lifestyle whilst giving him the freedom to continue to explore his musical career. Sadly the band split up and his business life began in earnest.

From 1987 until he sold out 2006, he built a successful IT services company based in Scotland which traded throughout the UK and also had spin-offs in the USA, Australia and Europe.

During that time he wrote many sales and marketing texts for his company which led to him being asked to write occasional editorial pieces in the business sections of The Glasgow Herald and The Scotsman newspapers. These occasional pieces eventually became a full blown monthly column called “Get a Grip” in Unlimited Magazine and, later, UP Magazine where he gained a reputation for delivering high-quality copy to deadline that required the minimum of editing. He was nominated for “Columnist of The Year” for his work on Unlimited.

He also wrote several travel pieces for Sunday supplements, mainly on his passion for marlin fishing. Marlin, happily, don’t swim in ugly places so the exotic destinations appealed to the editors and several pieces were commissioned on Mauritius, Venezuela, Mexico and Panama.

He collected all of his travel stories together, and with the help and encouragement of Andrew Johnston of Quiller Publishing, he published them in book form in the USA as “Game Fishing Diaries” in 2004.

He continues to be a director of five UK companies, one US company and one Mexican company.

His rock band, La Paz, have reformed and now have their first album “Granite” released on Metal Mind Records.