From 1987-1990 he was deputy editor of Cheshire Life magazine. For the past 25 years he has spent much of his time pursuing his personal interest in local history and criminology, two subject which in 1991 bred his first true crime anthology, Outrages-Fatal and Other: A Chronicle of Cheshire Crime. Derek Yarwood lives with his wife Christine in a village near Northwich and they have two grown up sons.