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1968
– 1974: Attended Abingdon School, obtaining qualifications in reading,
righting, sex, drugs and rock and roll. Also learnt how to dive in
cold green soup whilst wearing twin tanks and a zipperless dry suit,
escape from a submarine, leap out of a helicopter and fend of the
advances of gay CPOs, all courtesy of Her Majesties Royal Navy.
1974 – 75: Petrol pump attendant, spice packer, jet washer assembler,
night porter (in a ladies college - ummmmmm), eventually reaching the
dizzy heights of chief lavatory cleaner in the local Ironworks.
1975 – 76: Continuing education at the University of Life, attaining
1st Class Honours in motorcycle maintenance and alcohol abuse.
1976 – 80: Oxfordshire Fire Service – full time fire-fighter,
specialising in diving into burning buildings wearing a 12 litre tank,
Wellington boots and a funny yellow hat.
1980 – 82: Returned to UOL for postgraduate degree in touring Europe
and Africa on a motorcycle. Studies abruptly terminated in the final
year by a broken con-rod outside Puerto de Sagunto in the southeast of
Spain. Changed syllabus and married a hot tempered Franco/Spanish
dusky maiden.
1982 – 1990: Returned to the UK and rode the wave of Mrs. Thatcher’s "loadsamoney"
boom by starting a flourishing welding business followed by a body
builder’s gymnasium and nightclub.
1991: Crashed hard - but Mrs.Thatcher was nowhere to be found.
1992 - 95: Struggled on through the recession and messy divorce from
aforementioned hot-tempered dusky maiden, wondering what life was all
about. Re-discovered diving, but this time in crystal clear warm
waters with lots of pretty little fishes, corals and girls in bikinis
– thank you PADI.
1996 – 97: Found that life is all about having fun in the sun whilst
being paid to go diving in the Red Sea.
1997 – 99: Earned a generous tax free salary by building and running
dive centres and hotels in and around Sharm El Sheikh - importing
British Rock bands for entertaining the clients in the above. Started
writing cynical articles for Cairo based magazines.
2000 - 04: Back to the sea, running the Royal Diving fleet of safari
boats in Sharm, married to a gorgeous blonde German diving instructor,
rearing a 6 year old son, 4 year old twins, playing harmonica in the local bars, writing articles, scripts and doing voice-overs for
Egyptian videos and films.
2005 -
?: Eking out a meagre living selling clean fresh air, sucking
and blowing on a little organ on the rocks whilst pumping 500 tanks a day. Currently forced to live on the edge of the
cliff and drink Gin and Tonics on the terrace whilst watching the sun
set over the Sinai mountains of Ras Mohamed National Park.
It's a
hard life but............ |
