Welcome to my website. The coffee above reflects my caffeine addiction.
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I live presently to the S E of London with my wife Maura (happily married 40 years now) & our small greyhound Bobby.
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I work in IT as a specialist 2nd line desktop support person & been doing this work for 20+ years. The work entails some 1st line, some 3rd line.
I’ve worked for 40 months as a team lead/ manager & a couple of years doing some low level project work.
I've also some experience of 1st level on Active Directory, servers & Exchange, though restricted by large corporations/ security clearance to low level in these disciplines.
I live in Kent, am looking for work in Kent, the City, central & SE London
I worked for Newham college for 4 years as senior desktop support, having left in February 2020.
I resigned as the staffing for my department had dropped from 9 to 6 without the work having reduced, without any pay increases for all my time there & work was at the same level as when I had joined. Intended taking a couple of months off before looking for work again, then Covid hit and my wife self-isolated, so I joined her in that. Now, in March 2022 I'm looking for work again, but not
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Download my CV here or contact me at my email address at [email protected].
I can be contacted on +44-77-90-551-301 or, if desperate, 0740-461-9069
SkyPe: racoleman01
LinkedIn: uk.linkedin.com/pub/richard-coleman/0/603/138/
I enjoyed working at Newham college as permanent senior desktop support a team (8 personnel) who support more than 12,000 students and 900 staff.We look after 3,000 desktops and laptops, server management, cabling and network.
My function was 1st & 2nd line support for Windows, general fault finding, some low level support (hardware fixes, telephony, projectors, networks, Interactive whiteboards, servers, printers, tablets). The site is now a mix of Windows 7 and W10 & I have picked up some moderate Macbook skills.We use LanDesk, Remedy, MDT, Intune, AD & cable testers.
I did the bulk of supervising of work experience students & am now the main support to an apprentice recently taken on. I take on the bulk of the project on-site.
Although I spend 85% of my time at East Ham college, I'm also seconded to Stratford a couple of times a month to cover sickness or leave, as well as occasional visits to a few other sites for fault resolution.
One of the many pleasures is the wonderful ethnic mix here.
Because it was not possible to travel in on a daily basis, I stayed in Fulham during the week. I am looking to move on, for a number of reasons. I work for Capita (who do not train; I've never received a pay increase & unlikely to do so with Capita's present problem, which is also another reason to move on. Other reasons is the length of travel (usually about 90 minutes to the college) and a desire to work somewhere more central (central London or the City). I am looking for 30K or equivalent to move.
I had (now lapsed) SC clearance, working for Rolls-Royce (it is & remains my favourite role) for 3 years (military aircraft & Navy engines); Airibus in Filton (celebrated the last flight of Concorde with a party on Filton Airfield); Royal Navy in Portsmouth (my most interesting site); British Army on several occasions; MoD.
Now all I have is a DBS. Would like to have SC clearance again as I enjoyed working on defence sites.
I've now also have a CSCS card, for working on building sites, valid until August 2019.
I speak Dutch at a moderate/ conversational level (no other languages) & have done a limited amount of support work in Dutch. No other languages, although I occasionally lapse into gibberish.
I’ve spent a lot of my time working for senior people.
For example, I worked for the head of the British army (rebuilt his PC) & his staff at Land Command in Salisbury.
At Kimberly-Clark in Belgium I was sole site support for the senior staff & VIPs for the European HQ of their medical division (people would fly in from all over Europe & the US), as well as the HQ for Belgium domestic division, with their senior staff.
I was also senior site support (2 people on-site) for the European HQ of Cisco in Amsterdam & again a lot of my work was dealing with senior staff & VIPs.
I’ve been a contractor for many years, but now we have moved to the London area I’m looking for permanent work again.
We did live in Bristol area for a while & over the last 10 years I’ve been preferring permanent work to contract, but been unsuccessful. In hindsight (isn’t that wonderful) it was because there wasn’t a lot of work in Bristol, but now near London I’m trying harder for permanent work.
Lots of people enjoy contract work, but I wish I were away from it. My biggest personal gripe about it is that you never get a chance to settle into the work, increase your job skills or make friends amongst your colleagues, as you’re constantly moving on.
I worked in the Netherlands recently & one of the 2 main reasons for the shift was to try to get permanent/ longer term contract work.
I’ve not been offered perm work in the UK for over 20 years, but previously had 2 offers of such in the Netherlands (never happened for a number of reasons). So it looked a better prospect for permanent work than here in the UK.
Many years ago, there was a popular book on Peter’s principle.
It stated that people rise to the level of their incompetence. What happens is that you do your job well, get promoted & promoted, but after a while you reach a job that you struggle to do. Your rising ends & you can get stuck in work you find beyond your ability. You’ve risen to the level of your incompetence & quite often you’re aware of your problems & am unhappy.
I’m on the fortunate position of thoroughly enjoying my work, which becomes a virtuous circle; I enjoy what I do, that makes me happy; because I’m happy I enjoy my work & am good at it; as I’m good at it, I’m makes me better.
I’ve done some managerial/ team leading. I wasn’t a great manager, but a good deputy & team leader, which is the most that I’m aiming for.
2nd line support means I deal with people (which I enjoy very much); I have software, hardware & people problems to sort out. Every few years you have to learn a new operating system.
It’s challenging & fun.
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I’ve a wide range of interests and take on projects. I tend to describe myself as a problem solver who happens to work in IT. If I see a gap, I try to sort it out.
I live in a social housing flat (Places for People) in Maidstone (dull place, gorgeous countryside).
I volunteer as a member of the PfP National customer group, which is a group of tenants who advise the PfP board on tenant issues.
I am also the rep for my block.
I've used my enforced idleness to try to do my own contributions to averting climate change. I'm active on a number of Facebook pages and run 5, four related to conservation & solar energy.
Kent organic and wildlife gardening and general conservation topics https://www.facebook.com/groups/1028443963878792
which started off with me trying (and still intending once Covid is over) to get people from the group in Kent to meet up and discuss wildlife and organic gardening. It quickly segued into more of a general area for all aspects of rewilding, conservation, regenerative agriculture, conservation & the transition from relane on fosil fuels to a electris and hydrogen economy.
Kent solar power energy cooperative https://www.facebook.com/groups/778462379474198
which is my trying to get an energy coop going, which may or may not happen, In the meantime, we discuss the transition from relane on fosil fuels to a electris and hydrogen economy, particularly related to Kent
Renewable energy, solar power, electric vehicles, ebikes - United Kingdom
is is a UK wide group to discuss the transition from relane on fosil fuels to a electris and hydrogen economy,
UK woods, woodlands, forests, trees, to walk, enjoy & conserve https://www.facebook.com/groups/496172982056906
a group to encourage woodland walking groups; pictures of woodland, and all the good things forests and woods give us, plus protect them at the same time,
I published a small conservation magazine for 4 years on the subject of Wildlife Gardening.
Because work was hard to come by in the nineties, I started the Avon computer cooperative, which helped me & others to find work.
When we moved to Bristol I took on 4 allotments (the council was giving them away then) & created an organic orchard of about 100 trees. I then was appointed site rep for the allotment & had it converted to organic only (except for one hold out).
Once we left Bristol, the orchard became a community orchard for the other allotment holders.
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I’m a SF nut. I have some 1400 SF titles (mainly hard SF) & am slowly adding more, but as eBooks – not enough space these days for real books.
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I’ve been a jazz fan all my adult life. See my Facebook page Jazz in Kent https://www.facebook.com/groups/617086695096096
In the nineties I was living in Weston super Mare (WSM). Because there was no live jazz in the (pretty dire) town I started my own jazz society. This led onto the local council offering me a free room in the Wintergardens twice a month & for 3 years I ran a reasonably successful jazz club (lost £40 over 40 odd performances). That was soooo much fun!!
Through this I was also appointed chief steward for the first of the WSM jazz festival (Weston super Jazz) which was also 3 great days of me getting slightly sloshed (it was on from 11 AM until about 1 the following morning) & watching all the jazz I wanted. I’d dip into stuff I would otherwise not have seen. This led me to change the club from trad jazz to a more mainstream set-up.
I also helped with the East Bristol jazz club for a few years when we moved there.
When I was working in the US I was lucky enough to be sent to New Orleans for a week. I moved straight out of the Hyatt the company had booked for me & into a cheaper hotel in the French quarter. It was a great week.
My absolute hero is Duke Ellington.
Led the greatest jazz band, was a good pianist & produced thousands of the best jazz music compositions.
He was handsome, cultured & debonair. A living contrast to the perceived view white Americans had of the blacks, who they regarded as little more than ignorant, stumbling morons. Seeing him & many others of his race as highly competent & vastly talented jazz musicians helped change perceptions, as he was uncompromising about espousing the cause of the blacks in American society & I'm glad he lived long enough to see the Civil Rights bill enacted in the US..
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My other hobbies are conservation, cricket, cycling, music in general, ten-pin, computers, house-plants and dogs.
I'm also a competent, though simple cook. I enjoy cooking; my wife doesn't. So if i go away for any period of time I quite often make simple meals (stews, casseroles, meatloaf) to keep her going during the week.
I've also got a small organic allotment now near the army barracks in Maidstone. Put a new shed (August 2013) on it, to which I attached a small greenhouse. Already had the greenhouse, but it's a small plastic affair & the wind blew it down.
Grew strawberries, red currants , tomatoes, gooseberries, raspberries & potatoes.
Installing a number of raised beds & essentially grow grapes in rows & fruit, maybe some potatoes & tomatoes. I love gardening, but I'm a really bad at it, particularly growing vegetables.My grapevines (I have 7) allows me to produce approximately 5-10 bottles of very dry red & white wine.
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I have a medically chronic bad memory & deal with it by organizing my life through PDAs, Filofax & Outlook.
Before anyone says it's my advanced age or incipient Alzheimer's, I've been like this all my life.
For example, my short career in the police as a police constable was "distinguished" by me inadvertently starting a small riot & I made my only arrest.
Unfortunately, when it came time to identify the person I arrested in court, couldn't remember his face!! Also, the riot got me a commendation for my bravery in going in & a reprimand for being stupid enough to jump into it.
Because of this I have to write everything down, otherwise I run a very risk of forgetting it, but it has made me highly organized.
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I’ve worked & lived outside the UK a lot.
Many years ago, I also worked as a diver/ seaman leaving from Southampton & the ship went all the way round Africa over a period of some 5 months. The vessel was a 2nd WW tank landing craft built for the invasion of Japan. It had limited range & we had to keep stopping to fuel up. Because my company didn't have an agent who dealt with these things (initially) we keep sitting for a while in ports while they sorted out provisioning. We went to & stayed for 2 weeks at a time in the Canaries; Takoradi
(Ghana); Lobito (Angola); Mombasa (Kenya). We also spent 3 days in Port Elizabeth (S Africa)& ended up in Bahrain.
We had to go all the way round Africa because the ship couldn't use the Suez canal. There was enormous tension between the Israelis & Egypt at the time& it was considered a bad idea to take a vessel capable of carrying 2 full size battle tanks through the area.
We saw whales, dolphins, seals, ate flying fish that landed on the deck.
Near Lobito we saw literally hundreds of hammer-head sharks covering well over a square mile of the sea. Once we got past the Bay of Biscay temperatures never dropped below 30 degrees & I slept next to the engine room (so even hotter). In the Canaries & Ghana we had "fallen" regularly into the sea to cool down, but not when we were in Lobito.
Also, though unrelated, Angola was in the middle of the insurgence & we could hear gunfire in the hills round the town.
Ship got into trouble along the coast of SW Africa (the Skeleton Coast - refers to skeletons of ships) & we seriously thought it would sink, as the rudder was badly
damaged.
We'd taken on a number of Ghanaian seaman when there. Lovely guys, but we weren't allowed to go out drinking with them in S Africa. I looked for a post office when we were there & I was turned away from the entrance for the blacks & coloureds. Had to use the entrance for the "blanks" (whites).
I have no time for prejudice of any sort. Most of my heroes are black (the bulk of the great jazz musicians (Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, Miles Davis, Billy Holiday, Charles Mingus, Dizzy Gillespie, Art Blakey, Lionel Hampton) are Afro-American). So I celebrated with everyone else when apartheid was abolished.
Looking back, the trip is a great talking point, but was the most boring job I ever had (when at sea).
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My first job living abroad was a year in New Jersey (20 miles from New York - great city!!) in the eighties, where I was a network supervisor & was very lucky to be flown to
all the major US ports (company was in shipping). I went to San Francisco (three times); Los Angeles (twice), Baltimore (twice); Honolulu; Philadelphia; Washington; Norfolk (Virginia); Memphis; New Orleans; Houston;& Staten Island.
I’ve since worked (and sometimes lived) in W Germany for 4 months for ESA; best part of 8 years with various roles in the Netherlands; and about 18 months in N Belgium.
In the past I've worked for the Met Office (preparing weather maps), as a rather naïve police constable; luggage handler at Heathrow; done office & low level accountancy work; progress chaser; labourer; professional diver (North Sea & coastal); hardware engineer; data comms (before the Internet).
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From age 10-24 I had my first wonderful dog, Pim. He was a pure breed short haired collie sheepdog. Since then Maura & I have had Anna (Golden) from 1985-1991; Duke (whippet lurcher & with Pim, my favourites) from 1992-2008 from a puppy.
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Although I was born in the UK, my mother & her parents were Dutch.
I spent a lot of time in Amsterdam/ Netherlands as a child and have a moderate command of the language, apparently with an Amsterdamse accent (I’m told).
During the 2nd World War, the Germans would pick up suspected spies. If they thought the spies were non-Germanic speakers, they would ask them to pronounce the town Scheveningen. A non-Germanic speaker would get it wrong; I get it right.
My language skills & accent are such that I can wander around the country & northern Belgium, only speaking Dutch, & it can take the locals a little while to pick up that I’m actually native English.
What tends to give me away is that my grammar is poor; I’m good at making myself understood, but the choice of words & word order is often only moderately grammatical. Sometimes I really mangle the language.
I’m also a racial mix. My great grandfather on my mother’s side was Polish; my mother's parents were Dutch; my father's father was English & his mother was from N Ireland. And my wife Maura has a father from S Ireland.
After Brexit I'm still considering applying for Dutch natiobality for myself and moving back to the Netherlands.
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We’re new to Kent, as previously it was a county we drove through on our way to the Channel & it is turning out to be a lovely place to live.
I’ve moved around a lot before marriage & we seem to be carrying on this tradition.
I was born in N London, where I lived (I'm told) in a slum until I was 2.5. Apparently, when my mother (Hendrika- known as Ria) found a rat in my pram she persuaded my father (George) it was time to move.
From 2-16 I lived in S Norwood (N Croydon) where I went to the wonderful Stanley Technical school (my senior school), which had an engineering & woodworking shop. The founder Stanley also set up Stanley tools.
At age 4 or so I went on one of the last ever flights from the old Croydon airport on a Dakota DC9, from the war I expect, on the first of my many (annually, biannually) visits to my grandparents in W Amsterdam.
At 12 I got into SF, which has been one of my great loves ever since, turning me into the slightly geeky person I am today (then I was VERY geeky)
At 16 my parents moved to Bracknell & into a large static caravan. Horrible place & initially I had trouble sleeping because it was so quiet at night. Mt bedroom in S Norwood had overlooked the Norwood junction marshalling yards, which were noisy & busy all night.
While I was there I worked as a very bad police constable, progress chaser, luggage handler, labourer, various office & accountancy jobs. My first job was 24/7 shift as a weather charter for the Meteorological office.
During this period I got a government-sponsored course as a professional diver, & ended up working around the UK. North Sea & Africa.
After a few years I moved to Chiswick (lovely area) where I lived until I married Maura.
Maura & I then lived in Perivale (NW London) for a few years until we moved to W Ealing.
In the middle of that I did my year in the US & on our return, we got our only female dog, Anna (Golden retriever) at 4. She was our first joint dog until she died at 11 (never get a pure breed, they die so young). When we'd returned from the US, we'd stayed with an (now ex) friend as our place was still rented out. He had bought Anna to breed (didn't like dogs), but in his typically inept way, didn't realise she was too genetically damaged to be allowed to breed. So he abused her badly (she would cower under tables) & I bought here off him for the price of a model plane engine & she was ours.
In the nineties, we moved initially to Weston-Super-Mare for 7 years. Place is very dull & is filled with pensioners.
I'm a somewhat impatient driver, and love city driving. Maura worked as the children's' librarian for the local authority.& could always hear me coming, as the horn was in constant use, trying to get people who regarded a 30 MPH speed limit as dangerously fast to GET A MOVE ON.
We lost Anna our first year there & in our second, got Duke a very lively whippet lurcher. I was driving a taxi for a year & a couple had been told they were getting a council flat which didn't allow dogs. so I took him off their hands. So we then went from a very slow & sedate golden to a 6 month old bundle of energy. He was initially a bit of a shock to the system. but he was a great dog & lived then for another 14 years.
After 7 years, we moved gratefully to Bristol, a much more cultured & interesting place.
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We stayed there until 2008, when we moved to Den Haag (the Hague) in the central buurt (admin area).
Great location, 3 minutes from den Haag central station, & in the same buurt as the parliament, which was 5 minutes walk away. About 10 mins walk away was the Haagse boos, a wonderful area of parkland which extended all the way into the countryside.
Initially, I did well for work over there, as an English contractor who spoke moderate Dutch was a rare & sought after bird.
I ended up with 2 long contract roles in the Netherlands (zuid Amsterdam for 9 months & den Haag itself, also for 9 months).
After the den Haag role I got work near Zaventem airport in Brussels for 14 months as a site engineer. First 6 months I was staying in Brussels itself, peculiar little flat in which had a step in bath about 1.5 meteres long, so you couldn't lie down in it.
I spent the rest of the time there living in the old medieval town of Mechelen, which is halfway between Brussels & Antwerpen.
But the recession bit harder in some ways than in the UK & I spent a period after this without work. The problem was that, after a while, moderate Dutch wasn't enough to get a role & they wanted fluency. With my poor memory, even with language courses it would take me a long while to improve & I doubted I would ever become fluent.
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Then I started getting contract work in the UK, but not in the Netherlands. Eventually we had to admit defeat & come back to the UK (in late 2012). But where we are is very pleasant & we're reasonably content with being back here.
We've were originally renting near the prison in Maidstone, but we moved recently (2nd September 2013) into a flat within 20 yards of the river Medway also in Maidstone, close to the town centre. What should have been a relatively simple process became long & torturous, which went on for just under 6 months.
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Christmas/ New Year 2013-4
We were looking forward to our first Christmas in our new place & then the rains came; 60 cm of rain on the hills near Tunbridge Wells, which is where the Medway starts.
River rose about 4 to 5 metres & you can see the result below.
Yes, those are swans swimming in our street (we're in the block of flats to the right, river is behind the flats on the left)!!
This was taken on Christmas day. We moved into a hotel for 3 nights & my Xmas dinner was 2 bags of crisps & some chocolate biscuits. Whilst we had power & gas, the water went off (the pumps are under the flooded road at the far end).
Water was restored on the 27th. When we went back that day, we discovered that the water had only risen another 30 cm or so & that, whilst the foyer to our flats (ground floor) was under water, the flats remained mercifully dry. Even most of the services in the foyer (electrical points) remained dry.
All the flats here have been built the same way, garage or parking space on ground floor, living on the first floor & above, which means that the living areas are something like 6 to 8 metres above the normal river level.
The flooding was the most extreme for over 30 years & it does mean that we're not likely to see something like this again for a long time.
The Jag you see in the centre of the picture was also flooded & ended up being written off.
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I live presently to the S E of London with my wife Maura (happily married 40 years now) & our small greyhound Bobby.
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I work in IT as a specialist 2nd line desktop support person & been doing this work for 20+ years. The work entails some 1st line, some 3rd line.
I’ve worked for 40 months as a team lead/ manager & a couple of years doing some low level project work.
I've also some experience of 1st level on Active Directory, servers & Exchange, though restricted by large corporations/ security clearance to low level in these disciplines.
I live in Kent, am looking for work in Kent, the City, central & SE London
I worked for Newham college for 4 years as senior desktop support, having left in February 2020.
I resigned as the staffing for my department had dropped from 9 to 6 without the work having reduced, without any pay increases for all my time there & work was at the same level as when I had joined. Intended taking a couple of months off before looking for work again, then Covid hit and my wife self-isolated, so I joined her in that. Now, in March 2022 I'm looking for work again, but not
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Download my CV here or contact me at my email address at [email protected].
I can be contacted on +44-77-90-551-301 or, if desperate, 0740-461-9069
SkyPe: racoleman01
LinkedIn: uk.linkedin.com/pub/richard-coleman/0/603/138/
I enjoyed working at Newham college as permanent senior desktop support a team (8 personnel) who support more than 12,000 students and 900 staff.We look after 3,000 desktops and laptops, server management, cabling and network.
My function was 1st & 2nd line support for Windows, general fault finding, some low level support (hardware fixes, telephony, projectors, networks, Interactive whiteboards, servers, printers, tablets). The site is now a mix of Windows 7 and W10 & I have picked up some moderate Macbook skills.We use LanDesk, Remedy, MDT, Intune, AD & cable testers.
I did the bulk of supervising of work experience students & am now the main support to an apprentice recently taken on. I take on the bulk of the project on-site.
Although I spend 85% of my time at East Ham college, I'm also seconded to Stratford a couple of times a month to cover sickness or leave, as well as occasional visits to a few other sites for fault resolution.
One of the many pleasures is the wonderful ethnic mix here.
Because it was not possible to travel in on a daily basis, I stayed in Fulham during the week. I am looking to move on, for a number of reasons. I work for Capita (who do not train; I've never received a pay increase & unlikely to do so with Capita's present problem, which is also another reason to move on. Other reasons is the length of travel (usually about 90 minutes to the college) and a desire to work somewhere more central (central London or the City). I am looking for 30K or equivalent to move.
I had (now lapsed) SC clearance, working for Rolls-Royce (it is & remains my favourite role) for 3 years (military aircraft & Navy engines); Airibus in Filton (celebrated the last flight of Concorde with a party on Filton Airfield); Royal Navy in Portsmouth (my most interesting site); British Army on several occasions; MoD.
Now all I have is a DBS. Would like to have SC clearance again as I enjoyed working on defence sites.
I've now also have a CSCS card, for working on building sites, valid until August 2019.
I speak Dutch at a moderate/ conversational level (no other languages) & have done a limited amount of support work in Dutch. No other languages, although I occasionally lapse into gibberish.
I’ve spent a lot of my time working for senior people.
For example, I worked for the head of the British army (rebuilt his PC) & his staff at Land Command in Salisbury.
At Kimberly-Clark in Belgium I was sole site support for the senior staff & VIPs for the European HQ of their medical division (people would fly in from all over Europe & the US), as well as the HQ for Belgium domestic division, with their senior staff.
I was also senior site support (2 people on-site) for the European HQ of Cisco in Amsterdam & again a lot of my work was dealing with senior staff & VIPs.
I’ve been a contractor for many years, but now we have moved to the London area I’m looking for permanent work again.
We did live in Bristol area for a while & over the last 10 years I’ve been preferring permanent work to contract, but been unsuccessful. In hindsight (isn’t that wonderful) it was because there wasn’t a lot of work in Bristol, but now near London I’m trying harder for permanent work.
Lots of people enjoy contract work, but I wish I were away from it. My biggest personal gripe about it is that you never get a chance to settle into the work, increase your job skills or make friends amongst your colleagues, as you’re constantly moving on.
I worked in the Netherlands recently & one of the 2 main reasons for the shift was to try to get permanent/ longer term contract work.
I’ve not been offered perm work in the UK for over 20 years, but previously had 2 offers of such in the Netherlands (never happened for a number of reasons). So it looked a better prospect for permanent work than here in the UK.
Many years ago, there was a popular book on Peter’s principle.
It stated that people rise to the level of their incompetence. What happens is that you do your job well, get promoted & promoted, but after a while you reach a job that you struggle to do. Your rising ends & you can get stuck in work you find beyond your ability. You’ve risen to the level of your incompetence & quite often you’re aware of your problems & am unhappy.
I’m on the fortunate position of thoroughly enjoying my work, which becomes a virtuous circle; I enjoy what I do, that makes me happy; because I’m happy I enjoy my work & am good at it; as I’m good at it, I’m makes me better.
I’ve done some managerial/ team leading. I wasn’t a great manager, but a good deputy & team leader, which is the most that I’m aiming for.
2nd line support means I deal with people (which I enjoy very much); I have software, hardware & people problems to sort out. Every few years you have to learn a new operating system.
It’s challenging & fun.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I’ve a wide range of interests and take on projects. I tend to describe myself as a problem solver who happens to work in IT. If I see a gap, I try to sort it out.
I live in a social housing flat (Places for People) in Maidstone (dull place, gorgeous countryside).
I volunteer as a member of the PfP National customer group, which is a group of tenants who advise the PfP board on tenant issues.
I am also the rep for my block.
I've used my enforced idleness to try to do my own contributions to averting climate change. I'm active on a number of Facebook pages and run 5, four related to conservation & solar energy.
Kent organic and wildlife gardening and general conservation topics https://www.facebook.com/groups/1028443963878792
which started off with me trying (and still intending once Covid is over) to get people from the group in Kent to meet up and discuss wildlife and organic gardening. It quickly segued into more of a general area for all aspects of rewilding, conservation, regenerative agriculture, conservation & the transition from relane on fosil fuels to a electris and hydrogen economy.
Kent solar power energy cooperative https://www.facebook.com/groups/778462379474198
which is my trying to get an energy coop going, which may or may not happen, In the meantime, we discuss the transition from relane on fosil fuels to a electris and hydrogen economy, particularly related to Kent
Renewable energy, solar power, electric vehicles, ebikes - United Kingdom
is is a UK wide group to discuss the transition from relane on fosil fuels to a electris and hydrogen economy,
UK woods, woodlands, forests, trees, to walk, enjoy & conserve https://www.facebook.com/groups/496172982056906
a group to encourage woodland walking groups; pictures of woodland, and all the good things forests and woods give us, plus protect them at the same time,
I published a small conservation magazine for 4 years on the subject of Wildlife Gardening.
Because work was hard to come by in the nineties, I started the Avon computer cooperative, which helped me & others to find work.
When we moved to Bristol I took on 4 allotments (the council was giving them away then) & created an organic orchard of about 100 trees. I then was appointed site rep for the allotment & had it converted to organic only (except for one hold out).
Once we left Bristol, the orchard became a community orchard for the other allotment holders.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I’m a SF nut. I have some 1400 SF titles (mainly hard SF) & am slowly adding more, but as eBooks – not enough space these days for real books.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I’ve been a jazz fan all my adult life. See my Facebook page Jazz in Kent https://www.facebook.com/groups/617086695096096
In the nineties I was living in Weston super Mare (WSM). Because there was no live jazz in the (pretty dire) town I started my own jazz society. This led onto the local council offering me a free room in the Wintergardens twice a month & for 3 years I ran a reasonably successful jazz club (lost £40 over 40 odd performances). That was soooo much fun!!
Through this I was also appointed chief steward for the first of the WSM jazz festival (Weston super Jazz) which was also 3 great days of me getting slightly sloshed (it was on from 11 AM until about 1 the following morning) & watching all the jazz I wanted. I’d dip into stuff I would otherwise not have seen. This led me to change the club from trad jazz to a more mainstream set-up.
I also helped with the East Bristol jazz club for a few years when we moved there.
When I was working in the US I was lucky enough to be sent to New Orleans for a week. I moved straight out of the Hyatt the company had booked for me & into a cheaper hotel in the French quarter. It was a great week.
My absolute hero is Duke Ellington.
Led the greatest jazz band, was a good pianist & produced thousands of the best jazz music compositions.
He was handsome, cultured & debonair. A living contrast to the perceived view white Americans had of the blacks, who they regarded as little more than ignorant, stumbling morons. Seeing him & many others of his race as highly competent & vastly talented jazz musicians helped change perceptions, as he was uncompromising about espousing the cause of the blacks in American society & I'm glad he lived long enough to see the Civil Rights bill enacted in the US..
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My other hobbies are conservation, cricket, cycling, music in general, ten-pin, computers, house-plants and dogs.
I'm also a competent, though simple cook. I enjoy cooking; my wife doesn't. So if i go away for any period of time I quite often make simple meals (stews, casseroles, meatloaf) to keep her going during the week.
I've also got a small organic allotment now near the army barracks in Maidstone. Put a new shed (August 2013) on it, to which I attached a small greenhouse. Already had the greenhouse, but it's a small plastic affair & the wind blew it down.
Grew strawberries, red currants , tomatoes, gooseberries, raspberries & potatoes.
Installing a number of raised beds & essentially grow grapes in rows & fruit, maybe some potatoes & tomatoes. I love gardening, but I'm a really bad at it, particularly growing vegetables.My grapevines (I have 7) allows me to produce approximately 5-10 bottles of very dry red & white wine.
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I have a medically chronic bad memory & deal with it by organizing my life through PDAs, Filofax & Outlook.
Before anyone says it's my advanced age or incipient Alzheimer's, I've been like this all my life.
For example, my short career in the police as a police constable was "distinguished" by me inadvertently starting a small riot & I made my only arrest.
Unfortunately, when it came time to identify the person I arrested in court, couldn't remember his face!! Also, the riot got me a commendation for my bravery in going in & a reprimand for being stupid enough to jump into it.
Because of this I have to write everything down, otherwise I run a very risk of forgetting it, but it has made me highly organized.
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I’ve worked & lived outside the UK a lot.
Many years ago, I also worked as a diver/ seaman leaving from Southampton & the ship went all the way round Africa over a period of some 5 months. The vessel was a 2nd WW tank landing craft built for the invasion of Japan. It had limited range & we had to keep stopping to fuel up. Because my company didn't have an agent who dealt with these things (initially) we keep sitting for a while in ports while they sorted out provisioning. We went to & stayed for 2 weeks at a time in the Canaries; Takoradi
(Ghana); Lobito (Angola); Mombasa (Kenya). We also spent 3 days in Port Elizabeth (S Africa)& ended up in Bahrain.
We had to go all the way round Africa because the ship couldn't use the Suez canal. There was enormous tension between the Israelis & Egypt at the time& it was considered a bad idea to take a vessel capable of carrying 2 full size battle tanks through the area.
We saw whales, dolphins, seals, ate flying fish that landed on the deck.
Near Lobito we saw literally hundreds of hammer-head sharks covering well over a square mile of the sea. Once we got past the Bay of Biscay temperatures never dropped below 30 degrees & I slept next to the engine room (so even hotter). In the Canaries & Ghana we had "fallen" regularly into the sea to cool down, but not when we were in Lobito.
Also, though unrelated, Angola was in the middle of the insurgence & we could hear gunfire in the hills round the town.
Ship got into trouble along the coast of SW Africa (the Skeleton Coast - refers to skeletons of ships) & we seriously thought it would sink, as the rudder was badly
damaged.
We'd taken on a number of Ghanaian seaman when there. Lovely guys, but we weren't allowed to go out drinking with them in S Africa. I looked for a post office when we were there & I was turned away from the entrance for the blacks & coloureds. Had to use the entrance for the "blanks" (whites).
I have no time for prejudice of any sort. Most of my heroes are black (the bulk of the great jazz musicians (Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, Miles Davis, Billy Holiday, Charles Mingus, Dizzy Gillespie, Art Blakey, Lionel Hampton) are Afro-American). So I celebrated with everyone else when apartheid was abolished.
Looking back, the trip is a great talking point, but was the most boring job I ever had (when at sea).
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My first job living abroad was a year in New Jersey (20 miles from New York - great city!!) in the eighties, where I was a network supervisor & was very lucky to be flown to
all the major US ports (company was in shipping). I went to San Francisco (three times); Los Angeles (twice), Baltimore (twice); Honolulu; Philadelphia; Washington; Norfolk (Virginia); Memphis; New Orleans; Houston;& Staten Island.
I’ve since worked (and sometimes lived) in W Germany for 4 months for ESA; best part of 8 years with various roles in the Netherlands; and about 18 months in N Belgium.
In the past I've worked for the Met Office (preparing weather maps), as a rather naïve police constable; luggage handler at Heathrow; done office & low level accountancy work; progress chaser; labourer; professional diver (North Sea & coastal); hardware engineer; data comms (before the Internet).
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From age 10-24 I had my first wonderful dog, Pim. He was a pure breed short haired collie sheepdog. Since then Maura & I have had Anna (Golden) from 1985-1991; Duke (whippet lurcher & with Pim, my favourites) from 1992-2008 from a puppy.
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Although I was born in the UK, my mother & her parents were Dutch.
I spent a lot of time in Amsterdam/ Netherlands as a child and have a moderate command of the language, apparently with an Amsterdamse accent (I’m told).
During the 2nd World War, the Germans would pick up suspected spies. If they thought the spies were non-Germanic speakers, they would ask them to pronounce the town Scheveningen. A non-Germanic speaker would get it wrong; I get it right.
My language skills & accent are such that I can wander around the country & northern Belgium, only speaking Dutch, & it can take the locals a little while to pick up that I’m actually native English.
What tends to give me away is that my grammar is poor; I’m good at making myself understood, but the choice of words & word order is often only moderately grammatical. Sometimes I really mangle the language.
I’m also a racial mix. My great grandfather on my mother’s side was Polish; my mother's parents were Dutch; my father's father was English & his mother was from N Ireland. And my wife Maura has a father from S Ireland.
After Brexit I'm still considering applying for Dutch natiobality for myself and moving back to the Netherlands.
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We’re new to Kent, as previously it was a county we drove through on our way to the Channel & it is turning out to be a lovely place to live.
I’ve moved around a lot before marriage & we seem to be carrying on this tradition.
I was born in N London, where I lived (I'm told) in a slum until I was 2.5. Apparently, when my mother (Hendrika- known as Ria) found a rat in my pram she persuaded my father (George) it was time to move.
From 2-16 I lived in S Norwood (N Croydon) where I went to the wonderful Stanley Technical school (my senior school), which had an engineering & woodworking shop. The founder Stanley also set up Stanley tools.
At age 4 or so I went on one of the last ever flights from the old Croydon airport on a Dakota DC9, from the war I expect, on the first of my many (annually, biannually) visits to my grandparents in W Amsterdam.
At 12 I got into SF, which has been one of my great loves ever since, turning me into the slightly geeky person I am today (then I was VERY geeky)
At 16 my parents moved to Bracknell & into a large static caravan. Horrible place & initially I had trouble sleeping because it was so quiet at night. Mt bedroom in S Norwood had overlooked the Norwood junction marshalling yards, which were noisy & busy all night.
While I was there I worked as a very bad police constable, progress chaser, luggage handler, labourer, various office & accountancy jobs. My first job was 24/7 shift as a weather charter for the Meteorological office.
During this period I got a government-sponsored course as a professional diver, & ended up working around the UK. North Sea & Africa.
After a few years I moved to Chiswick (lovely area) where I lived until I married Maura.
Maura & I then lived in Perivale (NW London) for a few years until we moved to W Ealing.
In the middle of that I did my year in the US & on our return, we got our only female dog, Anna (Golden retriever) at 4. She was our first joint dog until she died at 11 (never get a pure breed, they die so young). When we'd returned from the US, we'd stayed with an (now ex) friend as our place was still rented out. He had bought Anna to breed (didn't like dogs), but in his typically inept way, didn't realise she was too genetically damaged to be allowed to breed. So he abused her badly (she would cower under tables) & I bought here off him for the price of a model plane engine & she was ours.
In the nineties, we moved initially to Weston-Super-Mare for 7 years. Place is very dull & is filled with pensioners.
I'm a somewhat impatient driver, and love city driving. Maura worked as the children's' librarian for the local authority.& could always hear me coming, as the horn was in constant use, trying to get people who regarded a 30 MPH speed limit as dangerously fast to GET A MOVE ON.
We lost Anna our first year there & in our second, got Duke a very lively whippet lurcher. I was driving a taxi for a year & a couple had been told they were getting a council flat which didn't allow dogs. so I took him off their hands. So we then went from a very slow & sedate golden to a 6 month old bundle of energy. He was initially a bit of a shock to the system. but he was a great dog & lived then for another 14 years.
After 7 years, we moved gratefully to Bristol, a much more cultured & interesting place.
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We stayed there until 2008, when we moved to Den Haag (the Hague) in the central buurt (admin area).
Great location, 3 minutes from den Haag central station, & in the same buurt as the parliament, which was 5 minutes walk away. About 10 mins walk away was the Haagse boos, a wonderful area of parkland which extended all the way into the countryside.
Initially, I did well for work over there, as an English contractor who spoke moderate Dutch was a rare & sought after bird.
I ended up with 2 long contract roles in the Netherlands (zuid Amsterdam for 9 months & den Haag itself, also for 9 months).
After the den Haag role I got work near Zaventem airport in Brussels for 14 months as a site engineer. First 6 months I was staying in Brussels itself, peculiar little flat in which had a step in bath about 1.5 meteres long, so you couldn't lie down in it.
I spent the rest of the time there living in the old medieval town of Mechelen, which is halfway between Brussels & Antwerpen.
But the recession bit harder in some ways than in the UK & I spent a period after this without work. The problem was that, after a while, moderate Dutch wasn't enough to get a role & they wanted fluency. With my poor memory, even with language courses it would take me a long while to improve & I doubted I would ever become fluent.
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Then I started getting contract work in the UK, but not in the Netherlands. Eventually we had to admit defeat & come back to the UK (in late 2012). But where we are is very pleasant & we're reasonably content with being back here.
We've were originally renting near the prison in Maidstone, but we moved recently (2nd September 2013) into a flat within 20 yards of the river Medway also in Maidstone, close to the town centre. What should have been a relatively simple process became long & torturous, which went on for just under 6 months.
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Christmas/ New Year 2013-4
We were looking forward to our first Christmas in our new place & then the rains came; 60 cm of rain on the hills near Tunbridge Wells, which is where the Medway starts.
River rose about 4 to 5 metres & you can see the result below.
Yes, those are swans swimming in our street (we're in the block of flats to the right, river is behind the flats on the left)!!
This was taken on Christmas day. We moved into a hotel for 3 nights & my Xmas dinner was 2 bags of crisps & some chocolate biscuits. Whilst we had power & gas, the water went off (the pumps are under the flooded road at the far end).
Water was restored on the 27th. When we went back that day, we discovered that the water had only risen another 30 cm or so & that, whilst the foyer to our flats (ground floor) was under water, the flats remained mercifully dry. Even most of the services in the foyer (electrical points) remained dry.
All the flats here have been built the same way, garage or parking space on ground floor, living on the first floor & above, which means that the living areas are something like 6 to 8 metres above the normal river level.
The flooding was the most extreme for over 30 years & it does mean that we're not likely to see something like this again for a long time.
The Jag you see in the centre of the picture was also flooded & ended up being written off.
May 2014
Although the above was what happened over Christmas & New Year, we're now into the end of the May & we're getting better weather. I've now added a couple of pictures of where we live.
When we're not being flooded the area by the river Medway here is quite beautiful.
This is a view from the river on the other side of the flats on the left of the picture of the flooding.
Although the above was what happened over Christmas & New Year, we're now into the end of the May & we're getting better weather. I've now added a couple of pictures of where we live.
When we're not being flooded the area by the river Medway here is quite beautiful.
This is a view from the river on the other side of the flats on the left of the picture of the flooding.
This is from about a mile upriver.
Nice, ain't it?
Great for dog walking and cycling.
Don't walk anywhere if I can avoid it, other with than the dog. Exception is London, where walking between tube & rail stations which makes more sense.
Preference
1. cycling
2. public transport
3. car.
9. walking
One of the great things about living as we were in den Haag was that I used my bike a lot on a daily basis. Further & we used the excellent Dutch public transport. Car was sat parked normally for weeks at a time without being used.
The path you see here is a Kent council walk & cycle route all up the Medway. The path goes upriver to Tonbridge for about 14 miles.
I tried the path some months ago (which parallels the railway for much of it's length), to try & organize a cycle event down it.
The path goes initially to E Farleigh, Wateringbury, Yalding, then onto Tonbridge.
My bike is a very old & very heavy Dutch three speed, which is built to hit pavements at speed & bounce onto them without damage (to the bike!!).
I've now moved this bike into London, so I can cycle in & out of work each day (when not raining). I also found the only place I know in SE England to repair it (steel rods instead of brake cables) just behind Elephant & Castle.
But I've now got a newer (only 20 years old) Puch road bike which I will be using whilst living during the week in Ealing.
The stretch to Yalding (about 6 miles) is fairly open & can be cycled easily, so long as you can occasionally lift the bike over stiles. Hard to do with the old Dutch bike.
But the trip I took from Tonbridge to Yalding was a nightmare. The 9 miles took me 3 hours; came off the bike once; came close to going into the river a couple of times; on the last stretch I ended up badly scratched by blackberries & the nettles had made my legs on fire with irritation.
Problem is that this part of the path is badly maintained & just not suitable for riding. The stretch between here & Yalding is fine; the path is open & fairly straight.
But between Tonbridge & Yalding it is 80% through woodland right next to the river; the path (particularly near Yalding) is often too narrow for walkers, let alone a cyclist. You're right next to the river (inches from the edge) & you cannot see more than a few yards ahead, so you round a bend & suddenly the river does a sharp turn, leaving you heading straight for the water.
Met a young guy who cycled part of the route regularly - he'd apparently lost at least 1 bike in the river.
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Allotment
As I don't have a garden, I've rented an allotment near the barracks in Maidstone for 5 years.
Gets me out, & yesterday (late May 2018), I was sitting in the sun just enjoying the newly built pond, which almost instantly attracted abroad bodied hawker, a chunky dragonfly. It hung around for a week or so but now seems to have moved on & a saw a couple of much lighter dragonflies over the pond (2 metres by 1.5 metres).
The allotment dries out badly in summer & being away, I don't get a chance to water it. Got a gardener to do this for me during the week, with perhaps a little mowing & weeding thrown in.The allotment slopes slightly and so catches the sun on the south (downhill) side, which is the long side (40 metres)
It is an organic/ wildlife garden - no pesticides or herbicides. I have 2 wildlife hedges hedges on the north side & from the north to south side. Hawthorn, various wild roses, a few other native British hedging plants thrown in.
But to act as shade, I've put up trellises on the south edge along half of the length, which I growing grapes (12) & various climbers, such as clematis. This year 2018 is the first that this screen is thick enough to be coming effective. Hidden behind this are raised beds of potatoes, red & white currants, strawberries, plus some 8 or 9 apple trees, 3 cherries,2 plums.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Website still being built; please bear with occasional errors & omissions
Last updated 21/03/2022 - stared revising for first tme in 4 years.
Nice, ain't it?
Great for dog walking and cycling.
Don't walk anywhere if I can avoid it, other with than the dog. Exception is London, where walking between tube & rail stations which makes more sense.
Preference
1. cycling
2. public transport
3. car.
9. walking
One of the great things about living as we were in den Haag was that I used my bike a lot on a daily basis. Further & we used the excellent Dutch public transport. Car was sat parked normally for weeks at a time without being used.
The path you see here is a Kent council walk & cycle route all up the Medway. The path goes upriver to Tonbridge for about 14 miles.
I tried the path some months ago (which parallels the railway for much of it's length), to try & organize a cycle event down it.
The path goes initially to E Farleigh, Wateringbury, Yalding, then onto Tonbridge.
My bike is a very old & very heavy Dutch three speed, which is built to hit pavements at speed & bounce onto them without damage (to the bike!!).
I've now moved this bike into London, so I can cycle in & out of work each day (when not raining). I also found the only place I know in SE England to repair it (steel rods instead of brake cables) just behind Elephant & Castle.
But I've now got a newer (only 20 years old) Puch road bike which I will be using whilst living during the week in Ealing.
The stretch to Yalding (about 6 miles) is fairly open & can be cycled easily, so long as you can occasionally lift the bike over stiles. Hard to do with the old Dutch bike.
But the trip I took from Tonbridge to Yalding was a nightmare. The 9 miles took me 3 hours; came off the bike once; came close to going into the river a couple of times; on the last stretch I ended up badly scratched by blackberries & the nettles had made my legs on fire with irritation.
Problem is that this part of the path is badly maintained & just not suitable for riding. The stretch between here & Yalding is fine; the path is open & fairly straight.
But between Tonbridge & Yalding it is 80% through woodland right next to the river; the path (particularly near Yalding) is often too narrow for walkers, let alone a cyclist. You're right next to the river (inches from the edge) & you cannot see more than a few yards ahead, so you round a bend & suddenly the river does a sharp turn, leaving you heading straight for the water.
Met a young guy who cycled part of the route regularly - he'd apparently lost at least 1 bike in the river.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Allotment
As I don't have a garden, I've rented an allotment near the barracks in Maidstone for 5 years.
Gets me out, & yesterday (late May 2018), I was sitting in the sun just enjoying the newly built pond, which almost instantly attracted abroad bodied hawker, a chunky dragonfly. It hung around for a week or so but now seems to have moved on & a saw a couple of much lighter dragonflies over the pond (2 metres by 1.5 metres).
The allotment dries out badly in summer & being away, I don't get a chance to water it. Got a gardener to do this for me during the week, with perhaps a little mowing & weeding thrown in.The allotment slopes slightly and so catches the sun on the south (downhill) side, which is the long side (40 metres)
It is an organic/ wildlife garden - no pesticides or herbicides. I have 2 wildlife hedges hedges on the north side & from the north to south side. Hawthorn, various wild roses, a few other native British hedging plants thrown in.
But to act as shade, I've put up trellises on the south edge along half of the length, which I growing grapes (12) & various climbers, such as clematis. This year 2018 is the first that this screen is thick enough to be coming effective. Hidden behind this are raised beds of potatoes, red & white currants, strawberries, plus some 8 or 9 apple trees, 3 cherries,2 plums.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Website still being built; please bear with occasional errors & omissions
Last updated 21/03/2022 - stared revising for first tme in 4 years.
