I read law at the London School of Economics and subsequently trained with a leading London entertainment law firm, Wright & Webb as I had always loved the movies and wanted to be involved with them in a professional capacity.

After qualifying as a solicitor, I joined Warner Bros and became head of legal and business affairs for their London-based record company and music publishing subsidiaries, WEA Records and Warner Bros Music.

I subsequently returned to private practice and in 1981, together with my business partner, Vivian Wineman, formed the media law firm, David Wineman which in 2008 merged with DFM Beckman to form DWFM Beckman. More details about my professional activities can be found by clicking on my firm's website.

My father came to England from Rumania in 1922 at the age of 16 with his parents and 7 older siblings and settled in North London where other relatives had already made their home.

He had no formal education at that time and being the youngest of 8 children was not considered a priority by his parents so far as studies were concerned.

So, whilst a brother read economics and political science at the London School of Economics and a sister studied medicine at the London Hospital, my Dad's first job was as a barrow boy getting up each weekday morning at 4.00 to catch a smoke-filled tram to the yard where he could rent a barrow and push it to market.

At 20, he began working in his brother-in-law's hat workroom where he promptly put a sewing machine needle through his finger and decided he was not cut out to be a hatter!

So he became a travelling salesman in the garment business travelling the length and breadth of the UK.

One evening, at the age of 30, having been thrown out of a garment buyer's office because his samples were not appealing, he came home despondent - in those days unmarried children lived at home until they married! -and told his sister, who by then had qualified as a "lady doctor", that he was totally fed up with his soul-destroying job.

She said to him "so why don't you become a doctor like me?" to which he retorted "you might as well tell me to fly to the moon!"

Nevertheless, he enrolled at night school and within 18 months gained his matric (the forerunner of O Levels) and at the age of 32 was accepted as a mature student at St Bartholomew's Hospital ("Barts"), the oldest and most-prestigious medical school in London.

in 1944, at 38, he qualified as a doctor and a year later married my Mum who had fled to England with her family in 1937 as a refugee from Hitler's Germany.

He became a GP and remained in General Practice until he retired aged 80 - he felt it would have been inappropriate to retire earlier as he had had such a late start!

My father's drive and determination to succeed against all the odds have been an inspiration to me throughout my own life and professional career and although I am also a late starter - at least so far as local politics are concerned - I hope to emulate his example if I am successful in persuading my constituents to elect me as a District Councillor for the Guild & Hathaway Ward.