And after we say goodbye

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A few years ago I became associated with a gentleman by the name of Gordon Smith. He was the man behind Naval History - a tremendous online WW1-WW2 naval resource, which in his words was:

Gordon started the site many years ago and it has changed very little since, other than becoming much larger and it has to be said, ever more disorganised. All of which, those who knew him and his site, came to love, and most importantly, respect.

Sadly, Gordon died in December 2016 and his sons took over the running of the site. It's worth spending some time there, even if only remotely interested in naval history, given the large number of human interest stories, and if nothing else, it's a great place to find history on ships your predecessors might have sailed in.

Which brings me onto this very kind comment made by @optimusprime in the WW2 airplane quiz thread:

My friend went all over the country for most of his life just taking photoes at every air show .He left lots of pictures of planes on discs when he passed away 2 years ago ,.His wife asked me if i wanted them at the time,, i said no ,, .I am not that interested in them, cars then the answer would have been yes. She may still have them if there is any interest i can ask .


What a lovely thought, and I wish I had the time to do such a resource justice. Somebody's life work added to my own personal, under utilised collection, makes no sense at all. In fact Gordon at Naval History asked me much the same question of Naval History and we got very close, I got very close, to taking the site over. But it was too big a subject, too big a job for one person - as Gordon himself often attested.

As a side note to Gordon's efforts, many public owned institutions often tapped Gordon up for photos and or data and used these in their own museums etc, and rarely, if ever credited him properly.


So what of all the history that all of us make every day? The personal memories, momentos and knock knacks that we collect, store away and then... one day all is lost. Or at best, passed to our children, in the case of Gordon.

Ok, so my huge collection of vintage Patagonia clothes isn't of much interest to many, although my wife has threatened to start a dog blanket business with them - down to -30c, so pooch will be lovely and warm. But many other personal archives, either collected or accrued, are of immense value. But they often end up discarded without a second thought.

So I am wondering - given the huge amount of car knowledge that exists here, plus other professional or personal interests you might have - what your plans are for your life's work. Now I just know some of you will be thinking that your legacy is your children - but beyond that, humanity moves on not just via offspring, but because of the curation, inventions and or research that we collectively leave behind. (and not just that left within these distinguished pages)

So what are your plans? Have you collected and or curated stuff that you intend giving a life to beyond your own? Have you left instructions in your will as to how to something should be handled. Have you 'done a Gordon' and ensured your life long work lives on thanks to financial planning and efforts of your offspring.

Would love to know more - especially the practical details behind your thinking and planning.


Chris


.
 
Chris

This is a (to many) a fascinating subject, for so many, diverse, personal and technical reasons.

Our lives are an archive or our experiences that are so often only accessed by us or occasional others. We are able to act as 'librarians and custodians' of our own memories and mementos that others would be challenged to do so.

Where to start? Then how to start?

For me, the challenge is scalability followed by referencing, then what to keep. Why did we keep it? Why did we discard it?.

We are all (to some degree) hoarders, but not in the physical sense. But if somebody could take a leaf out of Startrek and connect to an others mind I suspect it would be fascinating to the viewer. Simply because we are all voyeurs.

You post a photograph. I want to the know the location the location? WDB, wants to the know the camera make and model? What is the history of that rural branch line station and how did it avoid the ravages of Beeching?

I could go on and on and on and on........ You know that. My 'job' is in 'Big Data' and more specifically the 'Internet of Things'. I am passionate about this and that passion is an issue in itself as it can make me too much the hoarder and not enough the librarian.

Here is my view. We should all be our own librarians able to decide and make our own choices.. But we should all access to 'everything' without another persons personal censorship or choices filtering our choices and learning.

I tried to go through my beautiful late Uncle's life (he was an avid photographer and collector) I got stuck when I immediately opened an envelope from the 1930's. This contained black & white personal photographs, taken from his ship as they entered Liverpool. The subject was a half submerged submarine. Months later I had spent more time researching the submarine (HMS THETIS) than I had my initial target.

....and such is the problem with forums, like our very own MBclub. Better than most for so many reasons? I suspect mainly as it allows thread drift that is often more fascinating than the original post.

TBC.....
 
I wish my life was interesting enough or indeed that I had collected enough of something.

My mum and dad had a divorce, then I went the same way before remarrying.

I had a granny Clover from my fathers side and I loved her so much.

She had a fascinating time and was married to a businessman Major Clover who owned sack and bag factories, one in Norwich on Clover Road (named after him)

When he was alive they had everything lived in a big house with maids and chauffeur had horses and grooms Armstrong Sidley cars (is that spelt correct) a home with a pool.

He died fairly early in life and my gran was no businesswomen so a local firm of solicitors were put in charge and a manager of the factories took control of running the business.

My gran moved to a detached bungalow and had an annual allowance from the business.

Before she died it transpired the manager and a solicitor had swindled the company of many thousands and it went into receivership.

My regret is that I should have kept more of the family photos and memories of her life.

This may be slightly off topic but it brought back memories of a wonderful lady who I still miss to this day and I’m now in retirement so plainly her living and loving has had an impact of what I am now.

Robin


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
I think Robin's last sentence echoes my thoughts. I hope the most valuable legacy I could ever leave behind are my loved ones memories. I doubt Mrs Ant & daughter will have any interest or need for my garage full of tools. However, maybe they'll cherish all the McLaren tat I've collected over many years.
 
Chris

This is a (to many) a fascinating subject, for so many, diverse, personal and technical reasons.

Our lives are an archive or our experiences that are so often only accessed by us or occasional others. We are able to act as 'librarians and custodians' of our own memories and mementos that others would be challenged to do so.

Where to start? Then how to start?

For me, the challenge is scalability followed by referencing, then what to keep. Why did we keep it? Why did we discard it?.

We are all (to some degree) hoarders, but not in the physical sense. But if somebody could take a leaf out of Startrek and connect to an others mind I suspect it would be fascinating to the viewer. Simply because we are all voyeurs.

You post a photograph. I want to the know the location the location? WDB, wants to the know the camera make and model? What is the history of that rural branch line station and how did it avoid the ravages of Beeching?

I could go on and on and on and on........ You know that. My 'job' is in 'Big Data' and more specifically the 'Internet of Things'. I am passionate about this and that passion is an issue in itself as it can make me too much the hoarder and not enough the librarian.

Here is my view. We should all be our own librarians able to decide and make our own choices.. But we should all access to 'everything' without another persons personal censorship or choices filtering our choices and learning.

I tried to go through my beautiful late Uncle's life (he was an avid photographer and collector) I got stuck when I immediately opened an envelope from the 1930's. This contained black & white personal photographs, taken from his ship as they entered Liverpool. The subject was a half submerged submarine. Months later I had spent more time researching the submarine (HMS THETIS) than I had my initial target.

....and such is the problem with forums, like our very own MBclub. Better than most for so many reasons? I suspect mainly as it allows thread drift that is often more fascinating than the original post.

TBC.....

Brilliantly put Bruce. Am travelling at mo. Raveges of Exeter services. Back soon. Much to add to your post.
 
I wish my life was interesting enough or indeed that I had collected enough of something.

My mum and dad had a divorce, then I went the same way before remarrying.

I had a granny Clover from my fathers side and I loved her so much.

She had a fascinating time and was married to a businessman Major Clover who owned sack and bag factories, one in Norwich on Clover Road (named after him)

When he was alive they had everything lived in a big house with maids and chauffeur had horses and grooms Armstrong Sidley cars (is that spelt correct) a home with a pool.

He died fairly early in life and my gran was no businesswomen so a local firm of solicitors were put in charge and a manager of the factories took control of running the business.

My gran moved to a detached bungalow and had an annual allowance from the business.

Before she died it transpired the manager and a solicitor had swindled the company of many thousands and it went into receivership.

My regret is that I should have kept more of the family photos and memories of her life.

This may be slightly off topic but it brought back memories of a wonderful lady who I still miss to this day and I’m now in retirement so plainly her living and loving has had an impact of what I am now.

Robin


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

You already have me wanting to know more and.., not even the slightest bit off topic. If anything I didn’t describe it well enough. But Bruce more than made up for that though.
 
I think Robin's last sentence echoes my thoughts. I hope the most valuable legacy I could ever leave behind are my loved ones memories. I doubt Mrs Ant & daughter will have any interest or need for my garage full of tools. However, maybe they'll cherish all the McLaren tat I've collected over many years.

Doing yourself a massive injustice Ant. You’ve so much rich thought and experience to share with the rest of the world.
 
Where to start? Then how to start?

For me, the challenge is scalability followed by referencing, then what to keep. Why did we keep it? Why did we discard it?.

I don't see scalability as the major challenge. We can put load balancers in front of the resource without too many issues. Even Xenforo (which MC Club uses) has the ability to distribute incoming requests across a farm. And then there's the likes of Cloudflare which can be bolted on at the name server level - good value too. And don't forget Azure has scale on demand serverless architectures which can deal with bursts, both adhoc/async and planned - AWS too, etc. And as the Beeb keep reminding us, other services are available too.

When you say what to keep. Isn't that a function of cost? Google keep everything, so... but I take your point. Let's say you, I and a few others here decided to setup an archiving and referencing facility - we'd need to consider storage and data xfer costs above all else. (more on potential collaboration later perhaps....?)

Azure are quoting archive cost at £0.0015 GB/month for the first 50TB and £0.0164 GB/Month for hot access. Archive prices stay constant as you increase blob size, but hot access does get a little cheaper. So, looks like that works out at £16.4/TB/Month. Would need to look at backup costs - probably priced same as archive, so add another £1.5/TB/Month (seems cheap, would need to double check that).

Then you'd need to add data access and decide whether to flat file archive, or store in DB. And from there, relational or flat.. and so on. Cloudflare pops its head up here again as you can sentinel your data behind its image, js, css and html compressors. Which will help speed and data costs.

But above all of that, search is going to be the biggest challenge. I am working on a couple of projects now with some really cool search technology. Much faster than Google and with the ability to define entity templates to a much greater degree than Google etc/Schema.org manages. And of course, before you can search you need to index and decide on the both the structure and facets that you are going to expose via search filters. I won't go any deeper into this here as much of it is my proprietary technology - happy to pow wow offline or phone. Oh Bruce, what have we started?

Ps. Quick note on CMS systems. Any thoughts on that? They are all pretty poor in my view. SharePoint is dead it seems. MS CRM is not public facing. Wordpress is ok, but no decent user back end (user as opposed to admin). Etc.

You post a photograph. I want to the know the location the location? WDB, wants to the know the camera make and model? What is the history of that rural branch line station and how did it avoid the ravages of Beeching?

Yes exactly. I worked with the BBC on a similar requirement a couple of years back. Adding time, geo, sentiment context to their archive. I'll share the document with you when you have a spare ten minutes.

I could go on and on and on and on........ You know that. My 'job' is in 'Big Data' and more specifically the 'Internet of Things'. I am passionate about this and that passion is an issue in itself as it can make me too much the hoarder and not enough the librarian.

Again, we should/could share notes off line. If you are on LinkedIn, I'll send you a link to my profile.

Here is my view. We should all be our own librarians able to decide and make our own choices.. But we should all access to 'everything' without another persons personal censorship or choices filtering our choices and learning.

Yes, we should be able to choose what we share - but as we see on FB, many folks can't manage the simplest of things wrt to their private data... and one assumes that FB has spent a lot of time and money researching the best approach.


....and such is the problem with forums, like our very own MBclub. Better than most for so many reasons? I suspect mainly as it allows thread drift that is often more fascinating than the original post.

That's the thing isn't it? The ability to surf is what makes it so exciting. As you said above, a photo of St Erth station leading to a history of railway reform and so on.
 
I don't see scalability as the major challenge. We can put load balancers in front of the resource without too many issues. Even Xenforo (which MC Club uses) has the ability to distribute incoming requests across a farm. And then there's the likes of Cloudflare which can be bolted on at the name server level - good value too. And don't forget Azure has scale on demand serverless architectures which can deal with bursts, both adhoc/async and planned - AWS too, etc. And as the Beeb keep reminding us, other services are available too.

When you say what to keep. Isn't that a function of cost? Google keep everything, so... but I take your point. Let's say you, I and a few others here decided to setup an archiving and referencing facility - we'd need to consider storage and data xfer costs above all else. (more on potential collaboration later perhaps....?)

Azure are quoting archive cost at £0.0015 GB/month for the first 50TB and £0.0164 GB/Month for hot access. Archive prices stay constant as you increase blob size, but hot access does get a little cheaper. So, looks like that works out at £16.4/TB/Month. Would need to look at backup costs - probably priced same as archive, so add another £1.5/TB/Month (seems cheap, would need to double check that).

Then you'd need to add data access and decide whether to flat file archive, or store in DB. And from there, relational or flat.. and so on. Cloudflare pops its head up here again as you can sentinel your data behind its image, js, css and html compressors. Which will help speed and data costs.

But above all of that, search is going to be the biggest challenge. I am working on a couple of projects now with some really cool search technology. Much faster than Google and with the ability to define entity templates to a much greater degree than Google etc/Schema.org manages. And of course, before you can search you need to index and decide on the both the structure and facets that you are going to expose via search filters. I won't go any deeper into this here as much of it is my proprietary technology - happy to pow wow offline or phone. Oh Bruce, what have we started?

Ps. Quick note on CMS systems. Any thoughts on that? They are all pretty poor in my view. SharePoint is dead it seems. MS CRM is not public facing. Wordpress is ok, but no decent user back end (user as opposed to admin). Etc.



Yes exactly. I worked with the BBC on a similar requirement a couple of years back. Adding time, geo, sentiment context to their archive. I'll share the document with you when you have a spare ten minutes.



Again, we should/could share notes off line. If you are on LinkedIn, I'll send you a link to my profile.



Yes, we should be able to choose what we share - but as we see on FB, many folks can't manage the simplest of things wrt to their private data... and one assumes that FB has spent a lot of time and money researching the best approach.




That's the thing isn't it? The ability to surf is what makes it so exciting. As you said above, a photo of St Erth station leading to a history of railway reform and so on.


Chris:

Here you go.. https://www.linkedin.com/in/bruce-millar-7a7818a/

My "what to keep and what to discard" comments were really my own thoughts about how I use and learn from the Internet. "I didn't know that" is a staple if people do not tells us "that" often because they discarded it as uninteresting or private, whatever.

I see it here where some will reply with "I thought this was an MB forum?" Well it is. but it is also a gateway into other facets & genre's, if you want it to be. That is what (for me) makes it a success.

I am currently involved with a Cancer Charity who want to promote 'early diagnosis' but struggle to do so. My challenge to them is "data". How much is enough? Where are your sources? Who are you asking? and most importantly of all "who is reading it?" We desperately need to get some AI in there and use the data in ways that it truly benefits others and is not limited to a single message (as good as that message is).

It is difficult to help as he audience is not usually aware of the power that they have and how much others would value that data if they could get to it. I intend to change that.

I have used my own experience on his very forum as an example. My Cancer Story - To help others.
 
I am currently involved with a Cancer Charity who want to promote 'early diagnosis' but struggle to do so. My challenge to them is "data". How much is enough? Where are your sources? Who are you asking? and most importantly of all "who is reading it?" We desperately need to get some AI in there and use the data in ways that it truly benefits others and is not limited to a single message (as good as that message is).

Not sure AI is close yet Bruce. Lots of claims but they break down once the pre set rules run out. But getting there. But, machine learning would help I am sure. Again, it's not learning as such, more a trawling of archive data and predicting what happens next based on pattern matching. Azure and others have machine learning services, also sentiment analysis (Google too) which helps understand message semantics etc.

It is difficult to help as he audience is not usually aware of the power that they have and how much others would value that data if they could get to it. I intend to change that.

I have used my own experience on his very forum as an example. My Cancer Story - To help others.

But I guess most important of all in your Cancer Charity involvement, is your personal experience, coupled to your professional background. Extremely valuable I should imagine. BTW, I have been in discussion with NICE about their pathways, if that's of any use to you.

.
 
What you have factor in however in todays digital world is data noise. Although we have increased our ability to store vast amounts of data at the same time we have increased our abilities to fabricate information as well as gather it. To coin a favorite Donald Trump phrase " fake news" --ironic really since if there's anyone guilty of altering history he's your man. So increasingly in todays world where realities can be calibrated by individuals it becomes more difficult to find "the truth" anymore. It has perhaps highlighted what was always true that archive material/personal reminiscences are inevitably calibrated by the individual involved in collecting them and once that individual has gone a degree of their validity goes with them. Or to quote Rutger Hauer
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Not sure AI is close yet Bruce. Lots of claims but they break down once the pre set rules run out. But getting there. But, machine learning would help I am sure. Again, it's not learning as such, more a trawling of archive data and predicting what happens next based on pattern matching. Azure and others have machine learning services, also sentiment analysis (Google too) which helps understand message semantics etc.



But I guess most important of all in your Cancer Charity involvement, is your personal experience, coupled to your professional background. Extremely valuable I should imagine. BTW, I have been in discussion with NICE about their pathways, if that's of any use to you.

.
No 1 Daughter has just started at the Telegraph Group as an AI analyst, fascinating and fascinated I am.

So here is just one of my thoughts.

If a GP prescribes drug X to patient(s) 1, 2, 3, 4, you get my drift. A pharmacist then dispenses these "prescribed" drugs to said patients and based on a number, just a number, nothing else, a drug company manufactures some more of drug X to fulfill the demand. We all sleep well, nobody got hurt and life carries on?


Between, GP, Patient, Pharmacist and Drug Company, exists a huge amount of data that is not collected as it is not "required". Lets just take a very quick look here, shall we?

Patient. Did the drugs work, as in actually really work or was it a placebo effect?
GP. How many times have you provided repeats for this patient, based on "this is what they usually have?"
Drug Company. Do these drugs mask any other symptoms, let's say, a growing cancerous tumor?

I mean, it would silly to think that in 2018. We would prescribe cancer masking drugs that allow a cancer to grow undetected and unnoticed by the patient we are treating? Would it not? Surely if that were the case, we would never, ever recommend selling these over the counter without the need for prescription and allowing the patient to buy as many as they like, when they like, without ever asking, Do these work?

No we find it easier to spend absolute millions on scanning technology that detects the tumors that have grown undetected, happily masked by the drugs that you can buy or have have prescribed, without anybody ever checking what they are doing or to how many people they are doing it to.

But.... The data is there. Self interest and a lack of funding/initiative will keep it where it is.

My cancer grew inside me, consuming me, eating me alive, whilst all the time, my GP prescribed more and more PPI's, that hid the abominable pain, until I just bled out. Even then they debated the cause. This is no different today as it was then, three years ago. Yet 8500 people a year die in the UK from late/incorrect diagnosis of Oesophageal Cancer. In nearly every instance the patient will state that they were on PPI's and had been for some considerable time. I was told I was a "Classic Case".

A Classic Case.
How lovely. How nice that is. A classic Case, allowed to continue on a useless drug regime that was killing me because nobody every asked or looked at the data that is there today and was there then.

This is just one teeny, tiny example of how we can make data work for us, Work for good people who do no harm.

Anybody... Please feel free to use my Linkedin link. Maybe drop a note saying you are from MBclub please.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/bruce-millar-7a7818a/
 
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Hi,
Did anybody else notice this interesting (and scary) story on BBC news, the other day?

'Fake porn' has serious consequences
Basically - video editing software is becoming so accessible and powerful - you can create your own false news or porn videos using stored images superimposed on old video content!

Cheers
Steve

Yes and not only that, but some games engines are being used in an attempt to make photo real feature films. With 'characters' being guided around the set with hand held controllers. Based on the experiments my wife was involved with in Canada, it's still some way off, but it won't be too long before the whole set becomes synthetic. Not talking about porn of course :cool:
 
I'm finding this a fascinating thread with a broadening range of informative contributions. I do hope it continues.

As for Chris's opening question about plans for our life's work, it's something I've often pondered but done nothing about. It's all too easy to think that nobody's going to be interested in how I've spent my years, but I'd love to know more about my ancestors so why not. All my ancestors have long gone so I can't even ask them, not that I did enough when they were around. Perhaps being one of seven children limited the time my parents had available to chat about their lives and the lives of their ancestors. I learnt nothing from my father about his family (though I did find out from another source that one of his ancestors was a "tripe dresser"!), but my mum did find the time to tell us a bit - although even that information is fading with the passing years. She was rightly proud of her maternal great grandfather who was a transatlantic ship's captain and had a ship named after one of his daughters. She also delighted in telling me about her father, a pattern maker by trade, who invented a hinge to allow doors to open both ways following a tragic fire where people were trapped in a theater because the exit doors only opened inwards. (He couldn't afford to patent the hinge so he sold the idea for next to nothing.) Of more interest to me was that he made the first Spitfire propeller. I still have some of his woodworking tools but worry about what will happen to them when I'm gone.

I've wondered about writing my memoirs just in case any of my children are interested at some time in the future. I'm 68 years older than my youngest so there's every chance that I'll be gone before she gets to learn about me. My life and achievements haven't been spectacular in any way, but neither run of the mill either. After completing my electronics apprenticeship I worked for the British Security Services (GCHQ then working in association with MI5 & MI6). Then I went on to manage a team exploring the bandwidth capabilities of transmission media, including foundation work on fibre optics. After a short period planning submarine cable systems I ran an undersea cable jointing training facility for students from all around the world. Then I pioneered computerised monitoring of BT's UK cable network, systems for detecting faults before they became service affecting. (Many years later I provided training on this subject in Vanuatu in the South Pacific - not a bad gig.)

My life changed completely after moving away from my decidedly technical career into business development where I managed the preparation of bids for telecommunications consultancy around the world. I became involved in bidding for consultancy assistance with everything from installing satellite earth stations to privatising national telecoms administrations. The work was fascinating and diverse, but also highly stressful with tight deadlines and different cultures to deal with. The pressures of work and a slowly failing marriage combined to take their toll on me, so when it was offered I grabbed the opportunity to apply for retirement at 50 with a full pension. But my then wife wasn't sympathetic to my situation and she saw my early retirement as a chance for me to use my computing skills to earn more money on top of my pension so she could give up work to live a life of luxury. She couldn't comprehend that I needed to get away from stressful situations caused by work pressures.

About a year before my 50th birthday and my (official) retirement date I went to Mongolia to discuss possible consultancy work with the country's sole telecommunications provider. It was 1995 and the country had only just opened up to foreign visitors following a long period under Russian restrictions, so there was a lot to learn. I arrived via Beijing around midday on a Friday and had meetings arranged with the company directors starting on the Saturday morning, so despite the temperature being about -25 degrees I decided to take a walk around the centre of the capital Ulaanbaatar where I was staying. Ten minutes later I was standing in the large Soviet styled main square when two short but heavily clad figures approached me. One asked, "Can you help us?". I thought at first they wanted directions, but no - they wanted to listen to English because they were students and had only heard it from their Mongolian teacher. A long story follows on from that moment, but those two figures were young ladies, one of whom became my second wife and twenty years later the mother of my third child. In between were conversations (and laughs) with British ambassadors in Mongolia, a successful court battle with the Home Office here in the UK, a financially painful but satisfying divorce from Lucrezia Borgia, me having a job that mainly involved driving around in prestige and sports cars, my gorgeous in every way new wife and I setting up and running a hairdressing business, lots of journeys around the world visiting some great places, and numerous trips to IVF clinics and time on operating tables for both of us before our fabulous daughter was born. I've done aerobatics, solo parachute jumps, single-seater and supercar driving on various circuits, abseiling, potholing, and a whole host of other activities. My life hasn't been boring.

So yes, I think I have got something to tell even if my achievements haven't been spectacular. Perhaps I better get on with documenting it before it's too late.
 
I'm finding this a fascinating thread with a broadening range of informative contributions. I do hope it continues.

As for Chris's opening question about plans for our life's work, it's something I've often pondered but done nothing about. It's all too easy to think that nobody's going to be interested in how I've spent my years, but I'd love to know more about my ancestors so why not. All my ancestors have long gone so I can't even ask them, not that I did enough when they were around. Perhaps being one of seven children limited the time my parents had available to chat about their lives and the lives of their ancestors. I learnt nothing from my father about his family (though I did find out from another source that one of his ancestors was a "tripe dresser"!), but my mum did find the time to tell us a bit - although even that information is fading with the passing years. She was rightly proud of her maternal great grandfather who was a transatlantic ship's captain and had a ship named after one of his daughters. She also delighted in telling me about her father, a pattern maker by trade, who invented a hinge to allow doors to open both ways following a tragic fire where people were trapped in a theater because the exit doors only opened inwards. (He couldn't afford to patent the hinge so he sold the idea for next to nothing.) Of more interest to me was that he made the first Spitfire propeller. I still have some of his woodworking tools but worry about what will happen to them when I'm gone.

I've wondered about writing my memoirs just in case any of my children are interested at some time in the future. I'm 68 years older than my youngest so there's every chance that I'll be gone before she gets to learn about me. My life and achievements haven't been spectacular in any way, but neither run of the mill either. After completing my electronics apprenticeship I worked for the British Security Services (GCHQ then working in association with MI5 & MI6). Then I went on to manage a team exploring the bandwidth capabilities of transmission media, including foundation work on fibre optics. After a short period planning submarine cable systems I ran an undersea cable jointing training facility for students from all around the world. Then I pioneered computerised monitoring of BT's UK cable network, systems for detecting faults before they became service affecting. (Many years later I provided training on this subject in Vanuatu in the South Pacific - not a bad gig.)

My life changed completely after moving away from my decidedly technical career into business development where I managed the preparation of bids for telecommunications consultancy around the world. I became involved in bidding for consultancy assistance with everything from installing satellite earth stations to privatising national telecoms administrations. The work was fascinating and diverse, but also highly stressful with tight deadlines and different cultures to deal with. The pressures of work and a slowly failing marriage combined to take their toll on me, so when it was offered I grabbed the opportunity to apply for retirement at 50 with a full pension. But my then wife wasn't sympathetic to my situation and she saw my early retirement as a chance for me to use my computing skills to earn more money on top of my pension so she could give up work to live a life of luxury. She couldn't comprehend that I needed to get away from stressful situations caused by work pressures.

About a year before my 50th birthday and my (official) retirement date I went to Mongolia to discuss possible consultancy work with the country's sole telecommunications provider. It was 1995 and the country had only just opened up to foreign visitors following a long period under Russian restrictions, so there was a lot to learn. I arrived via Beijing around midday on a Friday and had meetings arranged with the company directors starting on the Saturday morning, so despite the temperature being about -25 degrees I decided to take a walk around the centre of the capital Ulaanbaatar where I was staying. Ten minutes later I was standing in the large Soviet styled main square when two short but heavily clad figures approached me. One asked, "Can you help us?". I thought at first they wanted directions, but no - they wanted to listen to English because they were students and had only heard it from their Mongolian teacher. A long story follows on from that moment, but those two figures were young ladies, one of whom became my second wife and twenty years later the mother of my third child. In between were conversations (and laughs) with British ambassadors in Mongolia, a successful court battle with the Home Office here in the UK, a financially painful but satisfying divorce from Lucrezia Borgia, me having a job that mainly involved driving around in prestige and sports cars, my gorgeous in every way new wife and I setting up and running a hairdressing business, lots of journeys around the world visiting some great places, and numerous trips to IVF clinics and time on operating tables for both of us before our fabulous daughter was born. I've done aerobatics, solo parachute jumps, single-seater and supercar driving on various circuits, abseiling, potholing, and a whole host of other activities. My life hasn't been boring.

So yes, I think I have got something to tell even if my achievements haven't been spectacular. Perhaps I better get on with documenting it before it's too late.

I read this top to bottom, three times or more. Great career you've had - although more of a life story. How did you feel about retiring at 50? I've neighbours and relatives that have taken the plunge at a similar age and, if they've not got very out of shape very quickly, they've certainly complained of lack of focus. Although there is one guy who has really taken to the afterlife as he calls it. Golfs mosts days, drinks like a fish, but looks extremely well. Possibly I guess due to having lost all measure of the stress that seems to blight much of life these days.
 
I read this top to bottom, three times or more. Great career you've had - although more of a life story. How did you feel about retiring at 50? I've neighbours and relatives that have taken the plunge at a similar age and, if they've not got very out of shape very quickly, they've certainly complained of lack of focus. Although there is one guy who has really taken to the afterlife as he calls it. Golfs mosts days, drinks like a fish, but looks extremely well. Possibly I guess due to having lost all measure of the stress that seems to blight much of life these days.
Your last sentence pretty much covers it - losing the stresses of work proved to be even more beneficial than I had expected. Mind you, it also coincided with losing the stresses of a sexless marriage (replaced with the opposite :)). I went from well off and miserable to poor and very happy.
 
Sorry Chris, I’d love to get stuck in but I don’t know if it’s just because I’m *only* in my mid-thirties but other than my children I’ve not really thought about what legacy or body of work I’ll leave behind, I could say my posts on this forum but I doubt they’ll be of any great benefit to anyone!
 
Sorry Chris, I’d love to get stuck in but I don’t know if it’s just because I’m *only* in my mid-thirties but other than my children I’ve not really thought about what legacy or body of work I’ll leave behind, I could say my posts on this forum but I doubt they’ll be of any great benefit to anyone!

What about your eclectic taste in cars Lee? I wish I'd catologued every thing I'd owned since a nipper. Bet your kids would love to read your thoughts on the subject one day.

One other things to note is that time appears to pass more quickly the older you get. And that it's never too early to start anything that might have a positive effect on your life. And from my experience - at 58 and a quarter :) there are projects I'd like to do, that I now feel I am too old to start. Although given the number of politicians who have governed the country well into their 70s, maybe I should revisit that. Also, and I know this will sound silly to 99% of the members of this forum, I worry that I will never get to the end of my reading list, especially given it grows by the month. Could have, should have, started much earlier.
 

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