Maidenhead, Berkshire. My whole family are Londoners, and they moved us out to “the sticks” when I was a toddler so I could enjoy what they deemed to be rural life. Maidenhead is famed for one of Brunel’s engineering creations: the Sounding Arch railway bridge, which suits our family history as most of the male line of Gunns were, and still are, railwaymen.

I escaped the call-up to the tracks and embarked upon an early career in the motor industry, sparking a life-long passion for cars and racing. Disliking the hours of the trade – who wants to work on a Saturday if they can avoid it? – it wasn’t long before I transitioned into clerical work. Skip forward a few years and I’m Head of Customer Services for a performance improvement agency in Oxford. Editing business proposals and presentations wasn’t in my job description, but they all came across my desk before leaving the building!

The pandemic forced me into a change of direction, and I’ve never looked back. I live with my 7 year old naughty cocker spaniel Callie, who believes that giving her some attention several times an hour is much more important than making tappy sounds on a keyboard.

at a motor racing circuit, knocking about with a Mini Se7en racing team. You can’t help but smile when you see a classic Mini, let alone 30 of them zooming round the track. Fans of the film “The Italian Job” (1969) will know what I mean. I feel very at home among the spanners and smell of petrol, pitching in when something breaks on the car (which it inevitably does). I’m currently getting excited about our next race meet, which is across the water in Zandvoort. Look out the Dutch – beep beep!

When I’m not doing that, I love to be outdoors with Callie. I’m an avid geocacher, which makes me part of the world’s largest “treasure-hunting” community. The app directs you to the exact GPS coordinates of a container, such as a Tupperware box, hidden in a secret place for you to find. Then you add your name to the list of finders and re-hide it for the next person. Searches have taken me to some amazing places that I would never have seen otherwise. I even found one on the top of Mount Snowdon! I’d best say no more, as non-members are known as “muggles”…

detail. My family and friends call me “The Pedant”, as I can spot a typo at 10,000 paces. I find myself actively looking for errors in menus when I go out to dinner, subtitles in translated films and everything that lands in my email inbox. It’s a gift and a curse rolled into one!
I’ve always been fascinated by etymology; not just English words, but those across other languages too. “Verity” is derived from the Latin word for truth (Veritas), with “verité” meaning truth in French. I’ve got a knack for understanding the written word in foreign languages, though sadly that doesn’t translate to being a fluent speaker of them…

anything automotive. I’ve worked with, on, or around cars my whole life and always jump at the chance to combine that passion with my editing skills. Or railways and trains, having grown up on the GWR network and been driven by family members. We went everywhere by train, my favourite destinations always being our regular trips to Cornwall and Devon.

I also cook and bake a lot, so foodie-related work would really set off my oven timer. If I could, I would make baked treats for all my Jellyfish colleagues on a regular basis!