About
Born in Shoreham-by-Sea in Sussex in 1943, and educated at Sevenoaks School and Keele University, Colin Ball, the author of Dupuytren’s Contracture, started his working life in the late 1960s as a teacher, in Malaysia (as a VSO volunteer in 1961/62), the UK, Ghana and Nigeria. Then, after a year as a taxi-driver, during which he co-wrote his first book, Education for a Change (Penguin Books, 1973), he worked for some years as a civil servant in the Home Office and the Department of Employment in the late 1970s. During that time he co-wrote his second book, Fit for Work? (Writers and Readers,1979). He then established an independent not-for-profit research and consultancy organisation specialising in social and community enterprise, based in London, the Centre for Employment Initiatives. Through his work there Colin gained an international reputation for his ideas and reports for international and inter-governmental agencies including the UN, EU, OECD and Oxfam and for governmental and non-governmental organisations in countries as diverse as Canada, the Sudan, the Gambia, South Africa, India, Pakistan, the Philippines, Vietnam and Brunei. He also prepared and presented two series of BBC Radio 4 programmes during this time.