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The Baby Years
- April 1956
- Libra was rising and Aries was with Sun (and my mother was with
daughter ...) (and for my chart click here)
- Born on a Friday 13th ... (my mother tells me she tried to 'hold on' until the next day but I wanted OUT!)
- I arrived on Earth in Hemel Hempstead- a 'new town' just
north of London
- I grew rapidly and touched my first computer in 1971, a
Short's VALVE ANALOGUE machine previously used for calculating
the 'flight plans' of projectiles such as bombs before it
arrived at my school - Apsley Grammar School, later part of
Longdean Comprehensive
- The first modern computer though was a DEC PDP-10 which was situated at Hatfield Poly (now Univ
of Hertfordshire) which we wrote pages of punch instructions to and received back paper tapes and
listings of the output.
- Our teacher was trying to get us to learn BASIC one instruction a week, so I asked
for the book, taught myself the rest of the language, then taught the class, then learnt FORTRAN and decided
to go to college as I had discovered something I liked and was rather good at!
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The College Years
- 1974-76
- Twenty years and counting ...
- Imperial College of Science & Technology welcomed me to
its second year of courses in Computing Science...
- ...and said goodbye to me two years later on account of me
spending more time setting up a student radio station (and the
student tv and welfare work) and making new friends at the Digby
Stuart Teacher Training college in South London
- and I went to the proms and then to work ...
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The Proms
- 1976-79
- Behind college is the Royal Albert hall ... where the
world-famous Henry Wood Promenade Concerts are held each summer -
eight weeks of classical music where you queue each day for a
standing place at the front of the 'prom' audience. You can often
hear them on the radio around the world, especially the 'last night'
which is an excuse to let one's hair down after 50 or more superb
concerts.
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And so to work...
- 1976 - 84: Spillers, Olivetti and Sperry Univac
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- Designing a network for Spillers Foods in Croydon
- Pulling apart company information and staff to make them more
profitable ...(they call it 'Business Analysis')
- into hardware and software pre-sales with British Olivetti
and Sperry Univac
- Learning TOOO many new computer languages and systems
- and in 1980 moved from Watford to Leighton Buzzard to live
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Out of London...
- 1980-84: In The House (one)
-
- Moved to Linslade and bought a house with a friend
- indulged in a permanent darkroom, a downstairs office and
gardening
- commuted daily into london for work and fun
- but moved out in Nov 1984 back to Watford, then South London,
then Watford, and then Central London again (just call me a
Yo-yo!)
- the moving ended in 1986 when I took a small flat in a beautiful part of North London...
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... and back again
- 1986-on: The Highgate Years
-
- A small flat with wonderful view and a short walk to Hampstead Heath to one side or Waterlow
Park on the other and that view right across London into Kent
- overlapped my work with interests backstage in the theatre
and radio until the mid-90's
- and went on theatre tours as a relief from computer screens
- Made new friends, joined groups of like-minded individuals
trying to make a stand.
- Worked on the start of msn (the microsoft network) for
Microsoft and then moved on to the internet 'proper' setting up
sites for myself and clients
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Radio and Theatre
- 1990-93
- While I was at school and college I was involved with AmDram
productions
- so then I did an evening class in theatre backstage skills
and the tutor said 'you already know all this - do it for
money!' so I did!
- productions in London and Cardiff joined touring around the
UK and into Europe
- Set up two temporary radio stations - clambering up poles on
roofs, rigging aerials, making test tapes and training DJ's and
presenter's (and producing a few shows too !)
- Brazen Radio and London Irish Festival Radio, and some tv
work too!
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Frequent Flyer
- 1997-99
- Went back to 'permanent' employment with a company no-one had
ever heard of ...
- In October 1997 I joined Miami's CHS Electronics Inc as their group's
Internet Program Manager
- spent an awful lot of time travelling around Europe
- and gathered frequent flyer cards like mad
- To see where I've been look at my travel
page
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New Millennium
- 1999 and into the new millennium ...
- Passed through a series of jobs where I mixed my internet, broadcast media, computer and other interests together
- Capital Radio, Narrateo and more freelancing
- Moving home into the next road to live with my partner (and keeping the old flat as an office) for a few years
- looking forward to the next 1000 years!
- also worked on a number of 'dot-com' start-up concepts
- and lead development teams with media company web divisions
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Learning and Politics
- After the internet bubble burst
- I decided to get some updated learning ...
- Having wanted to do an MBA for many years started one
- took on the opportunity cost of doing it (nearly) full time but compressed it to two years instead of three (or more!)
- and passed it!
and got involved again with politics...
- local politics with my tenants and leaseholders association
- student politics with the largest Student Association in Europe (OUSA)
- and party politics with the Liberal Democrats
- Moved back to my own place again in 2002 and installed broadband
- Was invited to join an insurance start-up in 2003
- Created the back-end systems to run it
- but after a great deal of work we didn't 'start up', and ceased operations in mid-2005
- so started working on an on-line graphics and photo editing business idea
- and was appointed Chair/Executive Director for the UK Chapter of Wikimedia - Wiki Educational Resources
- but am still looking around for something 'more interesting' ...
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