Few people have led as varied and eventful a life as Mike Thomas. He ended up owning a zoo but the road there took him down many avenues.

"If it hadn't been for the strange things that happened on my way to the zoo, I never would have got there," he said.

Fortunately, Mike has recorded many of his adventures in a book.

Born in Wales, Mike Thomas paints a delightful pen portrait of childhood at Siloam, "nestled at the bottom of a mountain". He tells of walking in the forest, of tickling trout and of the activities and characters of Siloam Baptist Chapel.

With a passion for poetry and a desire to be an educator, it was not surprising that he attended Goldsmiths in London to qualify as a teacher.

A few years later, he gained an art education diploma at Cardiff.

In between, Mike taught at a primary school on London's Old Kent Road and at another in a leafy area of Eltham.

His long association with Cornwall was sealed when he visited for a wedding. Out of work at the time, he took a temporary teaching post at Wellington Terrace Junior Boys School in Falmouth and stayed on.

Another career change came when he sold his house and bought and renovated a derelict cottage with the proceeds. The project came to the attention of Ideal Home magazine, which waxed lyrical about a concrete spiral staircase Mike had designed with an architect friend. This led to him renting a factory, employing six people and running a successful business manufacturing and installing stairways in Britain, Europe and the Middle East. Clients included Michael Caine, Stirling Moss and the Sheik Rashid Hospital in Dubai.

But Mike had been trained as a teacher and as a designer and did not want to earn a living running a factory producing stairways. So he was delighted when the entrepreneur John Southern invited him to design an art gallery based around the large collection of paintings of Archibald Thorburn that had been assembled at Dobwalls. The result was the innovative and award-winning interactive exhibition, The Thorburn Museum and Gallery.

More design commissions followed and Mike's career took yet another path. This included a consultancy at the Seal Sanctuary, which resulted in him buying the Gweek attraction.

This led to all sorts of adventures, including rescuing stranded and injured seals from the Cornish coast, carrying out a post-mortem on a sea lion and developing the educational facilities at the sanctuary.

With proceeds from the eventual sale of the sanctuary, Mike was able to purchase the lease of Newquay Zoo and embark on another career path.

However, he was soon staring bankruptcy in the face. He had bought an ailing tourist attraction and found himself dealing with many issues, from escaping animals to foot and mouth. He persisted and created replicas of a jungle, a rainforest and a desert, and developed the conservation role of the zoo.

Perhaps his greatest achievement there was promoting educational activities, culminating in the Newquay Zoo College.

In 10 years, he had turned the fortunes of Newquay Zoo around and was able to sell it as a successful business to Whitley Wildlife Trust, owners of Paignton Zoo.

He describes owning the zoo as "the happiest decade of my life".

Mike Thomas has led a remarkable life and when his wife Jenny suggested he should write a book about it, he sat down to pen Strange Things Happened On My Way To The Zoo, published by Alison Hodge at £7.95.