Hi, I’m a new kid on the block. Perhaps I should give a brief resume’ about myself as I’m sure it would be prudent to give you an insight into my fifty five years of life’s experience.
During my formative years from 1948, I was brought, no, dragged up in Bermondsey, South East London, where as a child, my stomping ground was London’s East End; Camberwell, Rotherhithe, Wapping, Peckham, Deptford, New Cross, Lewisham, Greenwich, and the Elephant Castle.
It was here that the local villains were akin to the Godfathers of the American Mafia. If you did alright by them and kept your nose out of their business, they left you alone, and it wasn’t unusual for a box of goodies to drop off of the back of a lorry onto our doorstep now and again. The Villains of that time were of a more selective type than they are today. You only got a hiding if you deserved it. It was an area where you really could leave your front door open, and everybody new every body else, and of course, each other’s business.
We lived in a two-bedroom basement flat, and I mean a basement way below street level. At the back of the flat was the local tannery factory. You can imagine the stink in the Summer time that would come from that building when the leather hides were being processed, it smelt like wet, cold teabags that had been saturated in highly concentrated urine. Mum and Dad had six children, myself being the eldest of three boys and three girls in that tiny basement flat. All home births, seven if we count Jenny who was still born, before we moved to a four bedroom second floor flat in 1963. It was only a couple of miles away from our previous home, still in the Bermondsey area, but it seemed like a mansion in comparison.
I was a young spotty kid growing up in an area where there really were Del boys’ and Rodneys’.
I became an apprentice chef after leaving school at fifteen, and served a three-year apprenticeship in a very posh hotel in Oxford Street London, my first career.
I can see a some amusing and human interest articles that I could write about in those times before I joined the Army at the age of eighteen, and started on my second career.
I spent the next twenty-three years in the army altogether, nine of those in Germany. Five six-month tours of Northern Ireland. Two six-month training tours in Canada. A two-year tour with the UN in Cyprus. It was there that my son who is now twenty-one was born. He has just returned from Iraq after serving six months with the Desert Rats in Basra.
I saw action with the 2nd Parachute Regiment in the Falklands, before being posted back to the UK to finish off my time in Aldershot just before the start of the first Gulf war.
In that twenty-three years I was married twice, had two children, got engaged at the age of eighteen but drifted apart, after being posted to Germany. We met again after twenty-one years of going our separate ways. She having a family of her own as did I. Her husband was jailed for murder and she divorced. My first marriage broke down and I divorced. We have been together now for fifteen years.
Now there’s a story there. Two lovers separated by circumstance, taking their own destined paths, only to meet again after twenty-one years and to finally marry their first real love.
After leaving the Army in August 1989 I became a computer applications trainer with a small company in Andover, where I started on my third career. I took my teacher training certificate with evening classes at Farnborough Technical College, but did not go into teaching education as I thought that teaching was a calling, and I did not hear the call. I stayed in IT training for the next thirteen years, and in that time I became a programmer, computer analyst, database developer, and finally in the last four years after quitting training. I decided I might as well go and practice what I preach, so I became an IT consultant specialising in a particular field of system administration and that was the start of my fourth career
You know, writing this little resume has opened up my mind to how truly eventful my life has been. There is a whole raft of things that come to mind that I have not mentioned above. It’s amazing when trying to write and encompass a life in brief brings all the memories, good and bad to the fore.
I have several hobbies that keep me busy. I enjoy making wooden toys for children and the desktop variety for office people; I make rocking horses, hobbyhorses, dolls’ houses train’s boats, planes and all manner of vehicles. I even have a website dedicated to this hobby along with how to articles and hints and tips for creating and making wooden toys, along with a forum. Although it is up and running, it is still under development. www.woodentoys.me.uk .
I have a large vegetable garden that also keeps me busy. I am an avid DIY’er . I occasionally still help people with their computer problems and software. I still enjoy that thrill of teaching and imparting my knowledge about the various applications that they use. To see that little light bulb light up in their eyes still brings on the rush.
I have over the past few years’ written articles on various subjects within my field of IT and had them published within that sphere. As time has gone on, I have been bitten by the writing bug, and feel that now is my time to write and talk about things that I am passionate about, mostly informative articles, not opinionated, definitely factual forthright and honest. Maybe even a story or two, of moments in my life that could bring a smile or a tear.
During my formative years from 1948, I was brought, no, dragged up in Bermondsey, South East London, where as a child, my stomping ground was London’s East End; Camberwell, Rotherhithe, Wapping, Peckham, Deptford, New Cross, Lewisham, Greenwich, and the Elephant Castle.
It was here that the local villains were akin to the Godfathers of the American Mafia. If you did alright by them and kept your nose out of their business, they left you alone, and it wasn’t unusual for a box of goodies to drop off of the back of a lorry onto our doorstep now and again. The Villains of that time were of a more selective type than they are today. You only got a hiding if you deserved it. It was an area where you really could leave your front door open, and everybody new every body else, and of course, each other’s business.
We lived in a two-bedroom basement flat, and I mean a basement way below street level. At the back of the flat was the local tannery factory. You can imagine the stink in the Summer time that would come from that building when the leather hides were being processed, it smelt like wet, cold teabags that had been saturated in highly concentrated urine. Mum and Dad had six children, myself being the eldest of three boys and three girls in that tiny basement flat. All home births, seven if we count Jenny who was still born, before we moved to a four bedroom second floor flat in 1963. It was only a couple of miles away from our previous home, still in the Bermondsey area, but it seemed like a mansion in comparison.
I was a young spotty kid growing up in an area where there really were Del boys’ and Rodneys’.
I became an apprentice chef after leaving school at fifteen, and served a three-year apprenticeship in a very posh hotel in Oxford Street London, my first career.
I can see a some amusing and human interest articles that I could write about in those times before I joined the Army at the age of eighteen, and started on my second career.
I spent the next twenty-three years in the army altogether, nine of those in Germany. Five six-month tours of Northern Ireland. Two six-month training tours in Canada. A two-year tour with the UN in Cyprus. It was there that my son who is now twenty-one was born. He has just returned from Iraq after serving six months with the Desert Rats in Basra.
I saw action with the 2nd Parachute Regiment in the Falklands, before being posted back to the UK to finish off my time in Aldershot just before the start of the first Gulf war.
In that twenty-three years I was married twice, had two children, got engaged at the age of eighteen but drifted apart, after being posted to Germany. We met again after twenty-one years of going our separate ways. She having a family of her own as did I. Her husband was jailed for murder and she divorced. My first marriage broke down and I divorced. We have been together now for fifteen years.
Now there’s a story there. Two lovers separated by circumstance, taking their own destined paths, only to meet again after twenty-one years and to finally marry their first real love.
After leaving the Army in August 1989 I became a computer applications trainer with a small company in Andover, where I started on my third career. I took my teacher training certificate with evening classes at Farnborough Technical College, but did not go into teaching education as I thought that teaching was a calling, and I did not hear the call. I stayed in IT training for the next thirteen years, and in that time I became a programmer, computer analyst, database developer, and finally in the last four years after quitting training. I decided I might as well go and practice what I preach, so I became an IT consultant specialising in a particular field of system administration and that was the start of my fourth career
You know, writing this little resume has opened up my mind to how truly eventful my life has been. There is a whole raft of things that come to mind that I have not mentioned above. It’s amazing when trying to write and encompass a life in brief brings all the memories, good and bad to the fore.
I have several hobbies that keep me busy. I enjoy making wooden toys for children and the desktop variety for office people; I make rocking horses, hobbyhorses, dolls’ houses train’s boats, planes and all manner of vehicles. I even have a website dedicated to this hobby along with how to articles and hints and tips for creating and making wooden toys, along with a forum. Although it is up and running, it is still under development. www.woodentoys.me.uk .
I have a large vegetable garden that also keeps me busy. I am an avid DIY’er . I occasionally still help people with their computer problems and software. I still enjoy that thrill of teaching and imparting my knowledge about the various applications that they use. To see that little light bulb light up in their eyes still brings on the rush.
I have over the past few years’ written articles on various subjects within my field of IT and had them published within that sphere. As time has gone on, I have been bitten by the writing bug, and feel that now is my time to write and talk about things that I am passionate about, mostly informative articles, not opinionated, definitely factual forthright and honest. Maybe even a story or two, of moments in my life that could bring a smile or a tear.