AFTER losing his job in a boardroom reorganisation, former company boss David Sartof has firsthand experience of how the recession has hit hard.

As the weeks of fruitless job hunting turned to months, many people would have become consumed by depression, anger or self pity. Instead the former Nato/RAF officer turned management consultant has kept himself busy by fulfilling a lifetime ambition to write a fictional novel.

A typical day in the past 18 months has seen him waving wife Yvonne off to work from their home, near Thirsk, North Yorkshire, and taking his eight-year-old son, Finlay, to school before returning to research the jobs market, filling in numerous applications and then knuckling down to his book.

Today the former schoolmate of Sir Clive Woodward and Ian Duncan- Smith is still searching for employment, but his self-published book River of Judgement is about to hit the shelves.

It’s a fast-paced tale focusing on three people fighting to survive their own personal entanglements amid the cut-throat savagery of London’s financial world in the run-up to the stockmarket crash.

It isn’t an autobiography, but there is no doubt David’s own personal experience of dog-eat-dog high finance, job loss and growing exasperation at rejection after rejection have given him useful personal insight into fighting back from adversity.

“For the first time in my life I found I didn’t have a job to go to but the mortgage and family bills were still there each month. It’s a sharp reality check as to how thin the line is between a comfortable life and a hand-to-mouth existence,” says Whitby-bred David.

His own carefully-planned daily routine is probably down to the many years he spent as a commissioned officer with the RAF, including secondment to Nato and working with GCHQ.

He left the service in 1997 and set up as a management consultant and then insurance broker until in 2008 the recession saw him leaving the company he founded. There was no six-figure severance package, just the tough challenge that faces middle- aged professionals forced to reenter the jobs market in the teeth of a recession.

“I think the experience of an ordered military lifestyle has definitely helped me cope with unemployment.

You have to have structure to your day, goals to aim for and a purpose in life. Without that, I can see how the constant rejections could lead to depression and resentment setting in,” says David.

David also acknowledges the daily human contact at the school gate, the local pub and about the village has helped his work as an author, providing an insight he might not have seen if he was still working.

“You have to get out and about, it keeps you sane and also gives a window into the different ways people go about their lives. I hope people see the characters in my book as threedimensional and that is possibly down to the time I’ve had to observe and reflect over the past 18 months.

Whether they would be as rounded if I’d been working full-time, I’m not so sure.”

■ River of Judgement is available online and from good bookshops.

The author will be signing copies at White Rose Books, Thirsk, from 10am to noon today and the Knaresborough Bookshop, High Street, Knaresbrough on March 13. Further details about the author, his book and a publicity video can be viewed at davidsartof.com

Ian Cross