Alan Forrester Matthews ACSM graduated from the Camborne School of Mines in 1974 and spent the next half a century globe-trotting around the world from mine sites as far flung as Peru and Papua New Guinea. Along the way, he met a kaleidoscope of crazy characters from the God Miner in PNG, to the bodyguard from the high mountain passes of Tajikistan, to the gnarled and ancient prospector in the searing heat of the Arizona deserts.

With an eye for the quaint and curious, his lifetime of memories amuse, appal and enthral.