Simon Boreham was born on 14 March 1940 in Kampala Uganda, to be christened Richard Simon Jeremy, the only child of his devoted parents Mike, an overseas banker, and Sybil, a diarist, poet and homemaker. By the time he was 18, he had lived with his parents in Uganda, Palestine, Jamaica, Sudan, Nigeria, Ghana and England where he spent eight years in public boarding schools. He would go on to live in Canada, Eire, Kenya and Hong Kong. Having trained at the Savoy Hotel London he followed a management career in the hotel, catering and hospitality industry before, in 1990, he and his wife Dawn bought Dragonfly, a tiny tofu-manufacturing factory in Devon on the banks of the River Dart, beginning an adventure of 22 years that grew the business 25-fold throughout the UK and into Europe, achieving various National Soil Association certificated organic food product awards, including the first for ‘Organic Tofu’.
Since retiring, he has devoted his energies to writing, which has led to nine published works now available on Amazon under the name of Simon Boreham.On 7 April 2021, Simon lost his wife, dearest darling Dawn, his great love and friend after a life together of 21,508 days, a loss so grievous that it has shaped his writing ndeavours ever since, work that has been keeping him alive. This loss, whilst so painful in its daily reminder, has also made him realise how incredibly fortunate he is in the life he has enjoyed, giving him now the time and inspiration to produce his new work: Joy: the Art of Making Tofu, which contrasts the days of loss with the love and adventure of their years making tofu together; After Joy: Glorious Heartache describes having to continue living alone without her. Fortunes of Love: Tell Tale Words marks his discovery of his poetry gene that began the year they bought Dragonfly and would continue for the 22 years of their ownership, giving him the pleasure of writing poems to give his DDD.
Simon’s early years with Dawn, their first meeting in a country hotel where she worked as a girl Friday, and their early days living in London and then moving to East Africa, exploring the world together, form the central focus of: DDD… the Beginnings.
Providing a guiding star in Simon’s life, especially since the loss of Dawn, all his work has been towards the theme of DAGT – do a good thing. In particular: DAGT Oracle: Finding Joy, which investigates the concept and its origins in depth. This core theory in Simon’s work presents a new way of living, a way to live and survive that is true to us and to the world around us.
With his Editor, Laura, he has created this website, a place to focus his published work, present his thoughts and remember how fortunate he was to have found and shared his life with his DDD, a life that would give him his Damascus moment when the idea of replacing God with the word ‘good’, which had been forming in his mind and would convince him that God was not working for him or for the world around him. That moment came in the year 2000 when he was driving to work at the tofu factory, when passing a beautiful oak tree in a field, a tree that had already inspired the poem ‘Tree Secrets’, he suddenly became aware, with stunning certainty, that there is no God.
So he would write two definitive but linked novels: Magda +: A Love Story and Go(o)d: ThePoint of Life where he would question the resurrection and suggest that we replace the word 'God' with 'good'? What if, rather than looking outwards, we look inwards and make it our life goal to do a good thing? We could all become, as it were, joyfinders, sharing love, kindness and beauty with the world around.
This concept doesn’t just have the potential to change our lives, but to change the world. What if, instead of war, we took love overseas? What if, instead of turning people away, we welcomed them in? What if, instead of destruction, we wrought kindness and good? Simon’s work asks all these questions.
Simon now lives in Exeter with his loving daughter, where he is still devoting his time to spreading the word of DAGT, and writing. Dawn’s ashes, along with those of their dog Lady, rest in an urn together, waiting for the day that he will join them. But before then, there is big work to do and a world to change. And he knows that his Dawn will always be there, waiting for her Simon, her arms open to him.
Simon is a successful entrepreneur, an author, poet, joyfinder and muser on life.
Before my dearest darling Dawn (my DDD) died, I never really thought about the consequence of her death for me.
Before I lost her I never thought about my life without her and how I would need DAGT to survive.
Before the starting point to DAGT, to ‘do a good thing’, there is always a question.
I knew this before I discovered DAGT. I knew this over 20 years ago when I got our first company computer and I
needed to create an email address. I had the idea of using the address to try to set a default benchmark for the
quality standards for Dragonfly Foods, covering the essential attitude between staff and staff, and staff and
outside contacts, including, suppliers, wholesalers, sales outlets and consumers etc, a continuous enquiry to
uncover barriers to achieving better:
- work satisfaction - products - production methods – suppliers and consumer satisfaction -
thereby achieving better quality standards wherever, just by asking 'is everything ok?*' or as an email
‘okquestionmark’ ...
*The email address could not include the symbol '?'.
The email address became: ‘dragonflyfoods@okquestionmark.com’
I wrote a poem:
okquestionmark
okquestionmark is an enquiry into the state of another’s wellbeing.
It is spoken, signed, or written to another, as a greeting that asks how you are, how your health is
perhaps, your state of mind, your circumstances maybe.
It is a gift of goodwill, given without any barriers to age, sex, language, class, race, colour, religion and
politics.
ok? is universal shorthand for many worldwide different gestures and expressions of solicitation.
It can be given to a friend or stranger, anywhere at any time.
However expressed, ok? is a welfare concern, which begs a response.
The reply, however minimal, establishes that a connection has been made, a connection that could open
a door on a potential to improve a circumstance that up to that moment may well have been hidden.
That, up to that moment, may well have been denied the opportunity for support and resolution.
But even if it just acknowledges a continuation of interest in another’s wellbeing for an instant, ok? can
make a positive difference to a fellow human being, to the wellbeing pool of humanity.
And it matters. It matters to me that whoever and wherever you are, you have it, or the possibility of it,
of wellbeing, ‘the feel good spell’, when a draft of the sweetest air can enter the heart, to fill the blood,
and course the body with that heady rush of glorious optimism.
Even if it is just for the moment of that contact, the moment when caring was expressed.
Believe me when I say I wish you well in the asking ok?
So will you join me in my quest to ask a thousand thousand thousand times the question, ok?
And in so doing raise the consciousness of humankind in caring for the friend or stranger, wherever and
whenever.
Try it with the next person you meet, you contact. Just ask, ok?
You will enjoy making this gift of goodwill.
You might be amazed at the response, and reap a surprising benefit.
Don’t be shy.
You can change the world’s consciousness.
After selling Dragonfly Foods in 2012, I changed the email address to ‘simon@okquestionmark.com’ and then later:
‘simonokquestionmark@gmail.com’.
I knew that ok? was asking: “Are you alright?”
Now I know that it really asks 'what can I do for you?' which is the real starting point to trigger the answer of
DAGT 'let me do a good thing for you'.
Now I know that I need help to get the world to make the 1% marginal change, or just ten million times of asking
DAGT.
Through the screensaver of DDD’s face that I look at daily, I have come to realise that although I love seeing her
face she is more than the face, and that feeing I get when I see her is a profound connection that enters the
knowing part of my brain and painfully disturbs my heart. Only death can free me from having to live on without
her, and only the idea of DAGT towards my children, family and friends is keeping me alive until...
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A joy, a great love, a deep abiding sorrow. Their love was a very good thing. Their memories will echo into the future. And their legacy will continue on. Grid ref.: OS-NS90/91EW42/43
IMAGE FROM A PAINTING BY YANA TREVAIL
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An innovative retelling of one of the oldest stories. She would give new meaning to his life and change the way he saw everything. He would be her greatest joy and her greatest sorrow.
IMAGE FROM A PAINTING BY YANA TREVAIL
Fortunes of love, lessons from life, learning from nature and warnings from history. An anthology of poems exploring the joy of words and the shape of love.
IMAGE FROM A PAINTING BY YANA TREVAIL
A treasured keepsake pocketbook answering life's essential questions, explaining DAGT, how to I live a good life, do a good thing and find joy through sacrifice!
IMAGE FROM A PAINTING BY YANA TREVAIL
A true love story that began by happenstance in the mid twentieth century when she said, "Is that my Simon?" binding me for 59 years until, finally, she twice asked, "Have you come to say goodbye?"
IMAGE FROM A PAINTING BY YANA TREVAIL
Once upon a time, there was acurious girl with a herd of goats.
One day they venture further than ever before, only to find a strange crying man...
ARTWORK BY GOBLIN DRAWINGS
After joy there comes glorious heartache and the constant search. How is it possible to find meaning in life when the reason for living left with the one you love?
IMAGE FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY SB
Is this really all there is, or have we been getting it wrong all along? Theirs was to be a blood line connection into tomorrow that may save humanity from itself.
IMAGE FROM A PAINTING BY YANA TREVAIL
Black sun burning hot on mother's breast. (SB)
Think climate change. Think melanoma skin cancer. Think white death and Black Power.
IMAGE FROM AN ETCHING BY YANA TREVAIL
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He knows there is one last formula.
GE~ = LSh1:1xTSp> where
GE~ = grief endured; LSh1:1 = love shared; TSp> = time spared.
IMAGE FROM A PAINTING BY YANA TREVAIL
Fork-tailed swallows on the wire, twittering autumn’s fall,
Hanging busy on the line, waiting nature’s call.
Fork-tailed swallows on the wing, taking summer’s spoil,
Leaving winter's cold behind, until springtime's recall.
A golden-headed girl meets the oreamnos. She and
her new friend Orea save them from a salmon-hungry bear.
The second in the Crying Man fable series.
ARTWORK BY GOBLIN DRAWINGS
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ARTWORK BY YANA TREVAIL
25 years ago, I became a joyfinder.
It all started with the idea of replacing God with the word ‘good’, which had been forming in my mind. I had become convinced that God was not working, well, not for me anyway.
In the year 2000, when I had my realisation, I was driving to work at the tofu factory. I passed a beautiful oak tree in a field. This tree had already inspired my poem ‘Tree Secrets’, which touched a joyful weeping nerve and held the secret to life. Now, remembering the poem, I suddenly became aware, with stunning certainty, that there is no God.
What if, instead, we replace the word 'God' with 'good'? What if, rather than looking outwards, we look inwards and make it our life goal to do a good thing?
Would you like to learn more about DAGT,
how to live a good life,
do a good thing,
and support the work of Simon and the DAGT community?
A composition by Jason Boreham
dedicated to his mother Dawn
A composition by Jason Boreham
to support a DAGT Chant on DAGT Day - 7th April!
A composition by Jason Boreham
dedicated to his father Simon
A composition by Jason Boreham
dedicated to his sister Catherine
ARTWORK BY YANA TREVAIL
Sign up to become a joyner and get regular updates about my work.
Members will receive monthly updates, a monthly poem and even music and artwork.
They will also receive information about each upcoming work, updates on each of the books as they become available to buy, and discounts on the novels.
I am running a competition to finish this work: Black Sun. I have taken this work as far as I want to, and now I need someone with a different perspective on the colour divide to take it on and complete the work. There are 20,000 words written so far, so I would be looking for further input of at least the same amount again. This is a rolling competition that will run until we have found a suitable collaborator. To enter, please get in touch, confirm you have read the published half, and we will ask you to develop a 500 word creative piece inspired by this. The chosen author will be paid for their time.
Good luck!
PAINTING BY YANA TREVAIL
This DAGT PORTAL painting commission is by the renowned Devon artist Yana Trevail. She was commissioned to create an original work inspired by the words “do a good thing” and produced this remarkable result that glows in its Exeter home from her extraordinary use of colours.
Trevail has said about it: ”I used a lot of different colours and mixtures thereof, some of which I can't even remember. It's a very intuitive, alchemical process and depending on the opacity of application, layers of paint affect each other in ways that I cannot describe, though palimpsest [from the Greek palimpsēstos, meaning ‘scraped again’] might come near. Every colour used is important, even if only one tiny brushstroke's worth”.
These colours include: titanium white, warm white, genuine Naples yellow, Naples yellow, Indian yellow, cadmium lemon yellow, cadmium yellow, yellow ochre, French yellow ochre, yellow ochre deep, transparent gold ochre, raw sienna, burnt sienna, Indian red, venetian red, transparent oxide red, cadmium orange, orange lake, napthol red, alizarin crimson, quinacridone rose, magenta, cobalt violet light, cobalt violet dark, manganese violet, terre verte, viridian, pthlalocyanine green lake, pthlalocyanine turquoise, cerulean blue, cobalt blue, phthalocyanine blue, burnt umber, paints by Michael Harding.
The result, combined with Trevail’s innovative application of the sweet scent of Oud, the essential oil extracted from the fungus-infected resinous heartwood of the agar tree, is indeed an exquisite experience for sight and smell when passing through the DAGT PORTAL into the infinite space of the heavenly beyond.
This last video of my dearest darling Dawn was taken by her granddaughter Lauren on the 24th December 2020 when baby Skylar was just 63 days old.
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1. First, there is shock. Then there is the sense of loss. Then the anger that may never leave you.
2. If you choose to take drugs, consider speaking to a medical expert first.
3. If you are feeling like you cannot cope, reach out for support. Here is a list of helplines.
4. Time passes and stretches away from the deceased. Time is both an enemy and a friend. Feel it in nature.
5. Accept that there is no-one who can share exactly in your loss, no-one who can share your personal agony. But trained councillors can help you learn to cope.
6. Seek new purpose in your life if you can. It may just be a moment to begin with, but these moments will get bigger.
7. When time sits sadly, find a distraction to help it pass. Consider your purpose and that of the one you lost.
8. Then do a good thing for another. Then do another for another and then another for another.
9. I know the agony. I lost my dearest darling Dawn on 7 April 2021. This knowledge will not give you solace but maybe some companionship. If you wish to make contact, email me. I will store your loss in the memory of this website with my poem: “Oh how I care when you’re not there … But when you share my time I’m fine!”
10. They say that in time the loss will get better. I'm not sure mine is. Perhaps, instead, you will absorb the lost object and the pain into yourself until another life is possible, perhaps.
1. Everyone has addictions.
2. Addiction is essential for learning to take place and for survival to happen.
3. Everyone needs to control addiction for their health, wellbeing and socialisation.
4. Keeping focus on doing a good thing will help control excess.
5 Excess leads to social breakdown.
6. Breakdown reduces life chances, particularly for the weak and vulnerable.
7. Exercising DAGT leads to happiness.
1. Should a right to life be enshrined as the first imperative?
2. Should people lose their right to vote at - say 60?
3. Should a council be sought before making decisions?
4. Should AI be able to care for health and the elderly?
5. Can automation provide for life’s necessities?
6. How can we support the artistic expression of all?
7. Should there be free migration for all?
1. The FIRST RESPONSIBILITY is for one’s own actions.
2. Reliance on other interventions (God, the state and friendship) should not be taken for granted.
3. All actions should be predisposed towards doing a repeatedly good thing (DAGT).
4. Attending to the needs of family, friends, neighbours and unexpected strangers are included.
5. Accepting an element of mental and physical suffering and inconvenience is expected with DAGT.
6. Appreciation of receipt of DAGT with ‘thanks’ and ‘reciprocation’ should follow, if possible.
7. The SECOND RESPONSIBILITY is for one’s own thoughts and behaviour, if possible.
Everyone should have passion in their life. I have had two: climbing and my dearest darling Dawn.
Both are mentioned in my writing and poetry. Climbing came first, starting when I went to Trinity College Dublin University in Eire. This lasted for the two years I was there (1958-1960) and the summit of my experience was climbing Cemetery Gates in Snowdonia, Wales with my buddy Glyn Cochrane. We were both 20. Glyn led the first two pitches and I the third exit route. We were awarded TCD’s first sporting Climbing Pinks in 1960, for which I am very proud.
Two years later I met my dearest darling Dawn. So no more climbing for me. But then there was 21,508 glorious days with her to come, until 7th April 2021.
Now just memories and my legacy of DAGT.
1. Getting old is everyone’s ambition.
2. Getting old and being alone, sick and destitute is not.
3. Getting old means living a life of experiences that have hand-me-down value.
4. Those that you brought into the world have a responsibility to help see you out.
5. Those that grow old have a responsibility to leave a legacy that will better the world.
6. Those that grow old have a responsibility to do good things.
7. Doing good things makes sense in any language.
8. Do good things whoever, whenever, wherever.
DAGT: Finding Joy is now published as both an ebook on Amazon, and as a pocketbook keepsake in print. It is to be launched in the beautiful Exeter Cathedral Shop in Devon, UK and is also available by mail order HERE. DAGT: Finding Joy explains what DAGT is and why it is so important to understanding the point of life, the point of your life and the point of all life, no matter how great or small that life has been or could be. The cover is from a commissioned painting by Yana Trevail titled DAGT Portal.
All the artwork on this site is copyrighted by Yana Trevail unless otherwise stated.
See here for more of her work.
My work is published with the the indispensable support of
Screengrab Proofreading and Editing. See here for more info.
