I am a working-class writer aged 67, now retired from full-time work. I was born and raised on a council estate, worked numerous jobs - shop assistant, butcher's boy, psychiatric care home assistant, road worker, VHS video delivery driver, door-to-door salesman, painter and decorator, carpenter and general builder. In 1999 I was diagnosed with a chronic arthritic condition and had to give up work. Aged 40, I went to college, gained a diploma and then a BA and MA at Bath Spa University in Creative Writing.

During my time on the buildings I took up writing after 'liberating' an old electric typewriter from a skip outside the Institute of Directors in Pall Mall. I wrote mostly in secret. I used my illness to my advantage, got an education and on completion of my MA was offered work as a lecturer in Creative Writing at BSU.

In 2021 I was chosen, along with ten other writers, to be part of New Writing North's 'A Writing Chance' programme for underrepresented writers. The programme was the actor, Michael Sheen's brain child and he had bank rolled much of it. Having read the piece I wrote about the last days of my mum's life, called 'Call Mum, Home' Michael recorded it for the BBC. My journey from the estate and a working-class, adult life, into the arts, is the topic for my talk 'A Stranger in a Foreign Land: a working-class writer's journey into the arts.' The talk is around 60 minutes, and after the talk I received very positive feedback from the organisers (The U3A) and audience members, one of whom wrote the following feedback:

‘I attended the talk by Stephen Tuffin and I’m so glad I did! What a lovely, witty, emotional and honest speaker. I found myself completely absorbed in the journey that he took us on, and you could just tell from his voice that he was fully living the words that he was saying. I had to leave the Hall just after the talk to do a bit of shopping. My car was parked just outside the hall, and on my return, Stephen was just getting into his car, and I had to go over, shake his hand, and thank him for allowing us in on his emotional adventure. Well done Stroud U3A, you really pulled it out of the bag with this speaker.’