Aidan Smith OBE was born in the Channel Island of Jersey in 1933 and educated at Vauxhall Boys’School, St Helier, De La Salle College (Les Vauxbelets), Guernsey and Campion House, Osterley. He spent two years training for the priesthood at St Sulpice Seminary in Paris and then taught in a school at Issy Les Moulineaux, returning to the UK to train formally as a teacher at Redland College, Bristol. Initially, he taught in Jersey and in 1968 was sent to the Seychelles as part of a Jersey Overseas Aid team for two years to prepare schools for independence. In 1974, shortly after the UK became part of the European Union, and seconded by the British Government, he moved to Brussels, Belgium to work in the European Schools as Directeur Adjoint. He retired in 1995 after 40 years in education, and was awarded the OBE. He returned to the island of his birth and, until his death in 2004, worked on a number of artistic projects.

Aidan’s poetry was written for his wife and three children and lovingly illustrates family life. He was also inspired to write about the occupation of the island of Jersey during the Second World War and about his own loss of faith. He wrote a number of epic poems, The Holy Grail, Theseus and the Minotaur and the Myth of Balder.