 | | |
Created: 8th January 2000 | |
| WHO AM I ?? |
|
|
Who am I? Is this the same as the question to which the answer is 42? In my case the answer could be 65, but the question is the same.
I am male, English, married with 2 children, who've both left home (amicably). We have 2 grandsons,  1 cat  and 1 car. I am a redundant, now retired, farm worker, sorry agricultural craftsman by default, not design. These are the facts, so to the history.
I was born in Kent in 1942, (it was quite noisy then, so I'm told) I was raised in the village of Hawkinge and after an unremarkable education at The Harvey Grammar School, where I fluked 5 'O' levels  I gained an apprenticeship with the Handley Page aircraft company in Cricklewood, N.W. London and later, Radlett, St Albans. A shy 16 year old country boy, dumped in the big city, I was totally miserable and, though I stuck with it, I grossly under achieved and finished with no additional qualifications. I was very glad to return home with the offer of a job with Skyways Coach Air at Lympne, Ashford airport where I spent 6 very happy years. I married Thelma  during this time and gained a huge family of in-laws, including a mother-in-law who thought the sun shone from my rear. It couldn't last! Well the marriage did but the job didn't. I found myself assembling folding seats for a motor caravan firm in Folkestone. What a nightmare! No wonder the motor industry in this country was crippled by strikes. No-one should have to suffer such boredom. I stayed a year, often skiving off after lunch because I couldn't face another minute at that bench.
Then the in-laws came to my rescue. Thelma's eldest brother was foreman at Swanton farm, and offered me a temporary job as tractor driver / fitter and though I'd often derided agricultural engineers,  (Big 'Ammer--Blunt Chisel) I leapt at the chance, thinking it might be a bit of a giggle 'til something better came along.
That was over thirty years ago, now I've been made redundant! As it turned out, not such a bad thing now I've become accustomed to early retirement.
Hobbies? They come and go. Amateur radio, call sign G4MIX, I was very keen, I liked C.W. (morse code) and tried building and modifying equipment. I had to because I couldn't afford the fancy shop bought gear (lousy wages). Now I just use 2 metres and 70cm F.M. to keep in touch with friends. I'm also secretary of the Hilderstone Radio & Electronics Club, a job that was sort of thrust on me but one that I've come to enjoy (mainly). It's quite a change from the manual labour of agriculture anyway!
I have bought a little motorbike (re-born rocker  ) so now I cruise the local highways and byways, but no longer terrorize anybody at all.
I had a bit of a fling with photography, I bought a cheap, Russian S.L.R. and thought I was David Bailly for a while. I still have the camera, a bag full of lenses and filters and some of the artistic pretentions but I couldn't afford the processing (lousy wages). Now I have this computer thing ( thanks to my son ) and a digital camera so I,ve a hard drive full of pictures of my garden
For the last few years I've returned to my love of flying. As a boy I enjoyed model aircraft and have dabbled off and on all my life. I currently have four or five radio controlled models in various states of repair but mending them is half the fun, so I'm told, and you can only fly one at a time. I've also taught my Grandson to fly but he's more interested in R/C off road cars.
So that's me, I may have answered my original question,but only a tiny part of it. Perhaps my watered down Christianity, or my confused thoughts on telepathy and the un-tapped resources of the brain or my enjoyment of comic sci-fi or just what someone described as my robust laughter  say more about me than a silly potted history of a very ordinary life.
Or perhaps the answer is 42! Now what was the question?? |
| | | | | | | VOLUNTEER BADGES
|
| |
| | | RESEARCHER DATA
| |  | Name:
The Mixer or Windle Poons re-incarnate
Last posted: Sep 7, 2009
| | | | | | Researcher Number:
107590
| | | | | | | | |
|
|
Home
Leave a Message
Discuss this entry
