User Profile

About me.
Well, I was born, although I didn't have much say in that business, then after a few years I went to school, as do most people, and from there, things went downhill!
My parents scrimped and saved every penny to keep a roof over our heads, while I, and my three sisters, blindly went on with being kids.
I wasn't much of a student, because my main interests were enjoying life, and keeping my head down below the parapet, although I didn't know what a parapet was, or what the phrase meant, until later.
I excelled in practical science, and English, thoroughly enjoying the challenges presented by such subjects as - A day in the life of a potato - type essays, often writing the required few hundred words on the subject in plenty of time to try another thread with the same title, before the lesson ended.
After school, I delivered newspapers, at first, then as my physique developed, I 'graduated?' into delivering groceries, using one of those iron bicycles with the steel-frame carrier on the front, as used by Granville in the tv series Open All Hours. (RIP Ronnie).
When the opportunity presented itself, and I was released from schooling, I joined the Royal Navy, and learned about life, operating obscure radio sets,and how to avoid working by all manner of devious means, such as - going down to the bakery for a loaf -.
My first ship after training school was an aircraft carrier, which heightened an already bubbling interest in all things aviation.
During my time in the 'Grey Funnel Line' I saw plenty of seawater, and a fair amount of passing coastline, but when you are working a shift system of four hours on, four hours off, for weeks on end, when you get to a port somewhere, the first thing you do is go to bed and SLEEP!!! As a result, most of the places I 'visited' were seen from the top of the ship's mast, or one of the gunnery platforms, while indulging in the endless round of chipping away rust, and re-painting. Yes, we 'sparkers' did that, too, and storing ship, another dreary drudge, which has been covered elsewhere in my writings, should they ever be published.
After the Navy, I made plastic drain-pipes for a few years, putting my hard-earned skills to good? use! Following that, I drove a fork-lift truck for a haulage firm, on the strength of which I moved into a brand-new flat on a brand-new estate that was reserved for people employed in Warrington, Cheshire. After a few years, the place sold out, and I found myself wanting an income, so took on my present employment, on a temporary basis, while I found something better. Thirty years later, I am still looking!
Still, it gives me plenty of free time during my lunchbreaks, to apply pen to paper, and see where the words take me.
I've had one article published in a limited circulation magazine, which described the inception, construction, and operation of a radio-controlled model glider, of a variety known as PSS, which will be discussed elsewhere, at some time, and have been active on a couple of radio related forums, one of which is no more. (I don't think that it was my presence that caused it to fold!) The other is ongoing, and may find itself named somewhere in the journal.
What else?
Along the way, I've had an assortment of cars, kept cold-water fish, tropical fish, and marines, and grown a few assorted 'exotic' plants. (Before the C+E come rushing round, I mean tropicals like Orchids, Strelitzia, and Gingers, not the other kind of 'exotics', which do not interest me in the slightest. My imagination does not need chemical 'enhancement') At present, I share the house with my wife and a cat, a small jungle, an assortment of radio sets, and another assortment of radio-controlled gliders.
Oh, and I've had prostate cancer, which was treated by radiotherapy.

Friends (15):

Mutual Friends (11):