I was born, in Farnborough (Kent) Hospital, in 1949, at a very early age.  I have no recollection of the event.  However, my mother told me this is how I came into existence, and since it's the usual procedure, I'll take her word for it.  I must have been a child prodigy; at the age of eighteen months I was already playing on the linoleum. My mother and father, failing to learn their lesson, also produced my sister, Sorrel, in 1954.

 My earliest memory is of standing at the bus stop at Pratts Bottom attempting to board a Green Line Coach for London.  My memory doesn't tell me what led me to take such drastic steps; my mother told me I was about two and a half at the time.  Thus started my life long interest in public transport. Between the ages of five and sixteen, I went to school when I had to.  When I didn't have to, I was mostly to be found exploring London and its country by bus or underground taking advantage of the reasonably priced "Rover" tickets.

 I left school to take a job as a Laboratory Assistant with the South Eastern Gas Board. I ended up there for no better reason than they were mad enough to offer me a job. My duties soon developed into driving all over southern England in a Land Rover testing gas and gas mains.  Before letting me loose on the road, the SEGB were reasonable enough to pay for me to learn how to drive.  I rewarded them by failing my test - twice.  Spurred on by the incentive of having to pay for lessons myself, I took a third test and passed.

 In 1967 I met Margaret Rickard, who had come to work in the same labs as me.  She had everything: brains, beauty and an insatiable appetite for men.  For a short period, the man was me, and we married.  Probably the best thing to come out of the marriage was Marie, my daughter. In 1973 I fell ill, and was off work for three months. I managed to upset Maggie's plans by recovering.  She had assumed, not without some justification, that I was going to pop my clogs, and had taken the opportunity to shack (or should that be "shag") up with her (and my) boss. That liaison didn't last long, but it was the end of the marriage and the end of my career with the SEGB. The last I heard from her, Maggie was on her fourth husband; he has my sympathy.

 After a brief period trying unsuccessfully to run my own business as a Hi-Fi expert / installer, and a less brief period installing and repairing televisions for Radio Rentals, I realised a boyhood ambition and took a job driving buses with London Country Bus Services (see the LCBS section). During this period, my job was about the only stable part of my life; I had several women friends, some even less suitable than the others. I lost my home, my daughter and my dignity. Then I met Doreen, we married in November 1978, and we have been together ever since.

 I moved in with Doreen; the travelling to & from Dunton Green from our flat in Sidcup, sometimes twice each way a day was tiring and I changed to a local independent operator, Orpington & District Omnibuses.  The company lasted only a little longer than my employment with them. Needing a job, and London Country having no vacancies, I became a booking clerk with British Rail, working through the ranks until I was the excursions clerk in the Divisional Offices at Beckenham.  However, office life was not for me, and I successfully changed tack and downgraded (as it was looked upon) myself to guard, firstly at Orpington and then at Grove Park (see the BR section).

 In the summer of 1988, my inheritance caught up with me and I spent eight weeks off work, after being taken ill at Holborn Viaduct and being returned to the care of my wife on a specially commandeered train. I returned to work long enough to take, and pass, the aptitude exams for drivers, but in December 1988 I fell ill again, and this time it was, effectively for good.  BR offered me medical retirement, which I accepted, and officially retired in June 1990.

 In the meantime, in order to keep my brain active, I had enrolled for evening classes in computer programming at the Welling Evening Centre which, in the daytime, was Welling (Secondary) School.  About half way through the course, the teacher announced that he would be retiring at the end of the school year, and invited me to step into his shoes. Thus it was by simply being in the right place at the right time that I embarked on yet another career.

 Teaching in the evenings brought me into contact with  school's daytime IT teacher, who invited me to help look after the equipment.  After a time, this was made into a formal arrangement and BNW Computing was born.  I started teaching during the day time and at other locations under the control of the Adult Education College for Bexley, most notably Crayford Manor House AEC, where I also became the technician and head of IT.  I even took a teacher training course; I have a qualification as a teacher but, amusingly, none in IT, not even the exams for which I taught.

 In 1994, the "old trouble" started again with a vengeance; I spent much of August 1995 in hospital being pumped full of drugs trying to stave off the inevitable.  The only effect they had were to leave me with glaucoma and thin skin. In February 1996 I had, privately, the surgery, which I should have had in August 1995, and which the NHS were too cash starved to give me.  All of my large, and much of my small bowels were removed. The operation was a success.  In May 1996, I spent a convalescent holiday in Calpe; it was probably then that I realised that one day I'd move to Spain permanently. In the meantime, I went back to work, something of which the British DSS didn't approve, since I had been declared permanently unfit for work. The business, and the teaching, went from strength to strength; I had even taken on an assistant, Penny.  However, I was not as fit as I liked to think I was; the work was starting to get a bit much.

 I first holidayed on the Costa Blanca in February 1986; Doreen had been a frequent visitor for many years before me, and it was she who persuaded me.  A week in Benidorm was all I was prepared to agree to.  That was, until about an hour after we had landed at Alicante Airport, and were on the coach on our way to our hotel.  This was in the days before the motorway.  We were travelling the N332 between El Campello and Villajoyosa, and I fell deeply and permanently in love with the mistress called "La Costa Blanca".  One holiday led to another.  We progressed from hotels to self catering to villa hire. We spread from Benidorm to Albir, Calpe, Teulada and Moraira.  We were spending as much time in Spain as we could.

  In March 1999, we were holidaying in Altea.  I casually said to Doreen "let's move here".  The timing was right. The only family we had to worry about was my mother-in-law.  She had picked herself up after being widowed in 1994, and when I asked her if she would consider coming with us, said "try stopping me". Doreen had retired in 1996. Thus it was in May 1999, we found ourselves in Benitachell, agreeing to buy the villa in which I am typing this.  BNW Computing was sold to Penny and the rest, as they say, is history.