Dean Lomax

And you'd find ammonites and belemnites, these squid-like creatures.

If you were lucky, you'd find ichthyosaur bones and plesiosaur bones and things.

And...

I always struggled trying to identify my finds.

And so as I got a little bit older and after I'd published my first paper and started to get a little bit more confidence in my abilities, I said, well, maybe an idea for a book, a field guide to identify fossils from the Whitby Coast and happened to find this brilliant publisher, Surrey Scientific Press, who loved the idea.

And then this book was published when I was 21.

And so I'd gone then within the space of a few years of just leaving school to discovering these fossils, being on this dig and then writing a book.

Yeah, absolutely that.

And so I'd continue to work in several jobs as a barman, working in delivery, earning as much money as possible.

So I could then continue volunteering at Doncaster Museum.

But I kept seeing that kind of bigger picture aspect.

And I mean, I even remember, Jim...

At one point, my mum and my older sister, Julie, sitting down with me and saying, we're going to fully support you as best as we can, but are you sure this is going to work out?

It's been a couple of years now, Dean, and obviously there's nothing else on the horizon.

You don't have the degrees or anything.

And I remember saying, I'll be okay.

And I'm very slowly getting my foot on that ladder and keep going up.

Well, you didn't have a plan B. No, I didn't.

Constantly, yeah.

Especially in my earlier career, the first kind of five years.