Into the sunset

It is one thirty five, and I have been retired for just over 90 minutes.

I still don't know how I feel about it.

I know, that closing down the programs on the work computer brought more emotion that I thought.

I worked, past tense, for forty years and three days, and back as a youth, I had no idea what I wanted to do. I wanted to be a train diver, but no idea how to make that dream happen.

It was also the height of Thatcherism, so jobs for the young were very thin on the ground.

Three years earlier, everyone in our year was asked what they wanted to do, exams and maybe apply for an apprenticeship​. I was a very young 13, and scared, rightly, of the whole wide world, and even though a dreadful scholar, I decided to do more of it, cheered on by teachers who, as my Dad correctly pointed out, were ensuring they had kids to teach thus securing their jobs.

I did an extra year in the 6th Form, not for A levels, but to resit the exams I was expected to fail, especally English language. I had been one of only two people in the year to pass the mock, but even then the school put me up for the actual exam, reluctantly.

I passed, and so the five subjects for sixth form went down to four, and so I had half the week off. And not motivated in retaking Maths and Physics, so only improved my result from a CSE 3 to a 2, which still wasn't equal to the GCE O Level.

So, I drifted through life, with no plan for next week let alone where I would end up. I was unemployed, apart from a couple of schemes for two years, before ending up in the chicken factory in March 1985, and growing into work became a QI inspector and then a chargehand.

But there had to be more to life than the chicken factory.

I was friendly with Jim, and Jim was friendly with Hunter, who had joined the RAF as an MT driver, and was having the time of his life. We both tried to join, but the trade was being phased out, so we had to choose something else. James joined as an Armourer, and when I was told the same thing, I mentioned armourer, and was told an interview would be arranged.

Instead I got a letter from the MOD saying my application to join as an armourer was successful, and I would join in July 1990.

After recovering from breaking my thumb in June, I joined in the end n September, and after going through basic and trade training, being posted to Nofolk.

I got married.

We got posted to Germany.

We got divorced.

I was posted back to the UK, at RAF Lyneham.

Met someone else.

Got married.

Got divorced Again.

Had to go on a year long training course for not really a promotion, but got to be called a technician, and came with a 50% pay rise and a posting.

Back to Norfolk.

I had five good years at RAF Coltishall, before the RAF and I decided we should go our different ways. I had a house in Lowestoft. So I went to live there, and bummed around for ten months, and then the money ran out.

Mum bailed me out, I got a job as a driver delivering chemicals, which was shit. As was the money, but meant I could pay the mortgage.

Then I was sacked.

And I answered an ad to be a geophysical engineer, as the company liked military types.

I worked there for three years, worked on the North Sea (lots), Indonesia and the Caspian Sea, as well as the very north of Norway. In winter.

I had met Jools. She looked after Molly.

We got married.

And at that point, this blog begins, or began.

All the while drifting along.

I joined Vestas, and there I stayed.

There have been good times, bad times, but all the way through, for forty years. Good people.

The best.

And some twats, clearly, but mostly good. Hopefully I was good too.

So, I will drift into the sunset, sails catching the wind, my eye on the next great photographic oportunity.