Gerry Place was born and raised in Sunderland, England, a mining village in NE England. He attended school all during the war and was determined not to go down in the mines like all his schoolmates. His inquisitive nature led him into the army and to Korea. He had a few near misses there and after his 5 years were up, he joined the merchant navy where he continued to have many adventures . He traveled to West Africa and Asia and jumped from one bizarre encounter to another.

By the time he was 29 years old, he had survived nine accidents, or incidents that could have killed him. His grandmother told him after his second accident at the tender age of 12, that “Only a cat has nine lives and you are running out of yours.”

After using up most of his nine lives, Gerry moved to Canada in 1960, and has called Calgary his home for the past thirty eight years.