from then on called "The Golden Year".
Nationality: British, Northumbrian (there is a difference)
Potted
History: Schooled in Northumberland to an adequate, but not life
changing standard. Picked on regularly for speaking, or at
any rate trying to, speak Queens English whilst all around me
spoke with that oh so distinctive Geordie dialect (the same one
that Cheryl Cole is so proud of).
I left school with mediocre qualifications and applied for
numerous jobs in the North-east, but failed miserably so, at
17 (on my birthday, in fact) I joined the Army and served for
10 years doing various soldiery-type things and drinking a lot.
At the tender age of 20, after demolishing a bar, throwing up in
a taxi, collapsing in a rose bed and getting into serious trouble for
breaching God knows how many military rules and regulations,
I quit drinking and have had nothing more than an occasional
shandy (lager/lemonade) since.
I left the Army in 1976 (on my birthday yet again) and began
working for Nixdorf Computers (now defunct) in Germany.
I had married over there and decided to stay. I worked for
a series of German companies until I decided to leave the
country in 2005 (after being divorced).
I now live and work in Cardiff, Wales and have re-married.
I have two not always co-operative step children, three dogs
and two cats.
My only hobby was golf, but I had to give it up as money is
required for such an activity. My new hobby ... if you can call
it that ... is blogging which infuriates the hell out of my wife
because it can be so time consuming.
These days I work in the care profession. It can be a very
hard job, sometimes quite sad, but it is rewarding (after a
fashion).
