Exciting life stories...
Discussion
MadOne said:
Well, my story is not maybe what you would call exciting compared to other ones I have read on this thread but it is more one I am proud of for turning bad into good. Our family as we were growing up were the Clampitts of our town (for those of you who don't know what that means, it means we were the poorest in our street). All the families were well off and we were the skanks with the hand me down clothes etc. Because of this the idiots (that's me being polite) in school bullied us (myself and my brother) all through our school life. Nobody wanted to sit with us "in case I catch something" and so on and so on. We were told we would never amount to anything, never get a job, never get married, have children etc. In fact we were nothing. Because of all this going on and being a child you tend to believe what people say you are. So I wasn't interested in studying. I wanted to have frineds and become part of the crowd but that wasn't to be. So all through school I learned nothing and had no interest in studying. So when O'level time came around, you guessed it I failed them all. My brother managed to get a couple. I left school unable to get into uni or college and slowly I was turning into this person I was told I was going to become. I had never had a g/f either. When I was 18 after two years on the dole I got a job in Tesco. Big wow. I hated it but had no enthusiam in life, still believing I was meant to be a skank. However, one day I read a book called 'The Secret' which changed my whole life. Suddenly I had enthusiasm and decided I was going to be something. While working in Tesco I enrolled in night classes. To cut a long story short, by the time I was 23 I had 6 O'Grades and 6 Highers. Maths, History, English, German, Biology and Chemistry. I also studied and passed Psychology on a home learning course. After that I got into Glasgow Uni to study law. I am now 45 and have been a lawyer for ten years. I also have a lovely wife but unfortunately we couldn't have children. We travel all over the world as travel is our passion, having been to Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Switzerland, etc etc etc. Now when I bump into the skanks in my class they still do not speak to me as they still think I work in Tesco (they don't bother to ask). We have a great social life with loads of good friends and I think how easily my life could have turned out so differently, ie I could have turne to drink, drugs etc but I believe the one and only way of revenge in this life is success!!! Hope this is the kind of story you like to hear.
Why wouldn't you tell them about your fantastic life story, and make them aware you're now a lawyer? It's a good'un! 
monthefish said:
King Herald said:
Don't any PHers have anything to say about their own lives??? 
Well I'm a Cat
monthefish said:
10 (FS1) Skydiver with a few hundred jumps to my name (max jump height 15,000 feet) but I didn't think it was worthy of mentioning....
Awww.. Anti-climax! 
Edited by The Riddler on Sunday 13th June 00:20
MadOne said:
Well, my story is not maybe what you would call exciting compared to other ones I have read ....... I am now 45 and have been a lawyer for ten years.
Nice one mate, very impressive. I just wish a few of the millions of habitual losers in the UK would take at look at your example and try to make something of themselves, instead of just whining and moaning and living on welfare all their lives.
Simps said:
Is it just me that finds this thread a little depressing?
I'm young (19) but I don't think I'll never have even half of the life experiences mentioned in this thread, and chances are I'll never have the balls to go out and try to amass such wonderful and inspirational stories.
You only get one chance to live, so it's up to you to make it happen I'm young (19) but I don't think I'll never have even half of the life experiences mentioned in this thread, and chances are I'll never have the balls to go out and try to amass such wonderful and inspirational stories
.
Meoricin said:
I'm 22, and am thinking in much the same way. I'm just finishing up my education (in my last week of a Legal Practice Course), and I can't help but think that I'm probably going to end up just following the route of getting a training contract, becoming a solicitor, and then merely living/working for the rest of my life
Funnily enough my cousin did miss Legal Practice course and was looking for a training contract when he had a similar though. He did a Teaching English course and is now counting the days until he goes travelling round Asia and Oceania for 6 months then he wants to get a teaching job in Asia. v15ben said:
Simps said:
Is it just me that finds this thread a little depressing?
I'm young (19) but I don't think I'll never have even half of the life experiences mentioned in this thread, and chances are I'll never have the balls to go out and try to amass such wonderful and inspirational stories.
You only get one chance to live, so it's up to you to make it happen I'm young (19) but I don't think I'll never have even half of the life experiences mentioned in this thread, and chances are I'll never have the balls to go out and try to amass such wonderful and inspirational stories
.Somebody once said:
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the things you did!
My story is a bit of nothing but here goes.
I came through my young life pretty well and served an apprenticeship as a Carpenter/Joiner and as an aside used to teach/help young people how to sail.
In the spare evenings I went back to college to get some more qualifications to become a Quantity Surveyor, got married when I was 21 and had 2 sons, I was always riding motorbikes as well.
One evening which was to change my whole life I was standing in my m8's forecourt of his garage when a young lad on a motorcycle came round a bend and lost it unfortunately I was in the way so took the full force of a sliding 650 right into me broadside which took me right out, breaking my rib cage,my right leg in six places below the knee, smashed up my left hip and tore it right out of its sockettaking the muscles with it, broke my pelvis in 8 places plus a few other broken bones to my right hand, I was then put into the intensive care for a few weeks then a general ward on traction with wires and pins everywhere which looked like one of the seaside postcards ,this was in April and I eventually came out in September in a wheelchair after having had some 5 fairly large operations including skin grafts , then I got a place allocated to me at a rehabilitation centre as an in patient from December until the end of March, the whole time was spent doing various exercises & swimming,at the end of the 3 months I could walk again albeit with a limp.
In the meantime my ex wife had decided not to run my construction company but to take up with the village post-master(w
ker)and took my sons with her.I then had the hassle of a divorce as well to contend with
As I had my own business it then took me 5 yrs to get my case to court, due to the fact that I had to get my case prepared and get an engineer in to prepare the RTA report.
At the end when the case came to court and I was paid my claim, guess where it went yep she got it all bar £13k.
So I started out again but as I wasn't allowed to carry anything I then got a job as a Contracts Manager for a year then I ended up as a director of one of the Souths largest Construction Companies, but after the accident it got me thinking about getting out of the U.K. especially as my ex had cleaned me out. So I bought a 26ft Sailing sloop and carried on working and after a year decided to sell the boat and buy a larger boat shell and fit it out for the big off.
It took me 2 yrs of working every spare evening that I had plus weekend and holidays until it was ready to go, in the meantime I had bought another house and had another woman,who wanted to go sailing ,so I sold the house and everything else that I had packed my job in and went sailing.
I took all my tools with me and sometimes when I stopped for the winters I worked and sailed in the summer, I eventually ended up after 5 years sailing in Gibraltar, at this point I was still living on my yacht in beside the runway of the Airport with a lot of other liveaboardson free illegal moorings.At this point my woman decided that she wanted to go back to the U.K. so we had an amicable split and she went back to the U..K. but we are still good friends to this day.
At this point I was ready for work again so I set up a small business cleaning and doing building refurbishment, I then met a lady who is now my wife and we started to buy old ruins in some of the small Andalucian villages and gradually got a bit bigger and bigger eventually working and living all over Spain during the last 20yrs and in that time I had to learn Spanish.
But still love travelling and will be off to Australia for a while in October.
I came through my young life pretty well and served an apprenticeship as a Carpenter/Joiner and as an aside used to teach/help young people how to sail.
In the spare evenings I went back to college to get some more qualifications to become a Quantity Surveyor, got married when I was 21 and had 2 sons, I was always riding motorbikes as well.
One evening which was to change my whole life I was standing in my m8's forecourt of his garage when a young lad on a motorcycle came round a bend and lost it unfortunately I was in the way so took the full force of a sliding 650 right into me broadside which took me right out, breaking my rib cage,my right leg in six places below the knee, smashed up my left hip and tore it right out of its sockettaking the muscles with it, broke my pelvis in 8 places plus a few other broken bones to my right hand, I was then put into the intensive care for a few weeks then a general ward on traction with wires and pins everywhere which looked like one of the seaside postcards ,this was in April and I eventually came out in September in a wheelchair after having had some 5 fairly large operations including skin grafts , then I got a place allocated to me at a rehabilitation centre as an in patient from December until the end of March, the whole time was spent doing various exercises & swimming,at the end of the 3 months I could walk again albeit with a limp.
In the meantime my ex wife had decided not to run my construction company but to take up with the village post-master(w
ker)and took my sons with her.I then had the hassle of a divorce as well to contend withAs I had my own business it then took me 5 yrs to get my case to court, due to the fact that I had to get my case prepared and get an engineer in to prepare the RTA report.
At the end when the case came to court and I was paid my claim, guess where it went yep she got it all bar £13k.
So I started out again but as I wasn't allowed to carry anything I then got a job as a Contracts Manager for a year then I ended up as a director of one of the Souths largest Construction Companies, but after the accident it got me thinking about getting out of the U.K. especially as my ex had cleaned me out. So I bought a 26ft Sailing sloop and carried on working and after a year decided to sell the boat and buy a larger boat shell and fit it out for the big off.
It took me 2 yrs of working every spare evening that I had plus weekend and holidays until it was ready to go, in the meantime I had bought another house and had another woman,who wanted to go sailing ,so I sold the house and everything else that I had packed my job in and went sailing.
I took all my tools with me and sometimes when I stopped for the winters I worked and sailed in the summer, I eventually ended up after 5 years sailing in Gibraltar, at this point I was still living on my yacht in beside the runway of the Airport with a lot of other liveaboardson free illegal moorings.At this point my woman decided that she wanted to go back to the U.K. so we had an amicable split and she went back to the U..K. but we are still good friends to this day.
At this point I was ready for work again so I set up a small business cleaning and doing building refurbishment, I then met a lady who is now my wife and we started to buy old ruins in some of the small Andalucian villages and gradually got a bit bigger and bigger eventually working and living all over Spain during the last 20yrs and in that time I had to learn Spanish.
But still love travelling and will be off to Australia for a while in October.
Kneetrembler said:
My story is a bit of nothing but here goes.
I came through my young life pretty well and served an apprenticeship as a Carpenter/Joiner and as an aside used to teach/help young people how to sail.
In the spare evenings I went back to college to get some more qualifications to become a Quantity Surveyor, got married when I was 21 and had 2 sons, I was always riding motorbikes as well.
One evening which was to change my whole life I was standing in my m8's forecourt of his garage when a young lad on a motorcycle came round a bend and lost it unfortunately I was in the way so took the full force of a sliding 650 right into me broadside which took me right out, breaking my rib cage,my right leg in six places below the knee, smashed up my left hip and tore it right out of its sockettaking the muscles with it, broke my pelvis in 8 places plus a few other broken bones to my right hand, I was then put into the intensive care for a few weeks then a general ward on traction with wires and pins everywhere which looked like one of the seaside postcards ,this was in April and I eventually came out in September in a wheelchair after having had some 5 fairly large operations including skin grafts , then I got a place allocated to me at a rehabilitation centre as an in patient from December until the end of March, the whole time was spent doing various exercises & swimming,at the end of the 3 months I could walk again albeit with a limp.
In the meantime my ex wife had decided not to run my construction company but to take up with the village post-master(wker)and took my sons with her.I then had the hassle of a divorce as well to contend with
As I had my own business it then took me 5 yrs to get my case to court, due to the fact that I had to get my case prepared and get an engineer in to prepare the RTA report.
At the end when the case came to court and I was paid my claim, guess where it went yep she got it all bar £13k.
So I started out again but as I wasn't allowed to carry anything I then got a job as a Contracts Manager for a year then I ended up as a director of one of the Souths largest Construction Companies, but after the accident it got me thinking about getting out of the U.K. especially as my ex had cleaned me out. So I bought a 26ft Sailing sloop and carried on working and after a year decided to sell the boat and buy a larger boat shell and fit it out for the big off.
It took me 2 yrs of working every spare evening that I had plus weekend and holidays until it was ready to go, in the meantime I had bought another house and had another woman,who wanted to go sailing ,so I sold the house and everything else that I had packed my job in and went sailing.
I took all my tools with me and sometimes when I stopped for the winters I worked and sailed in the summer, I eventually ended up after 5 years sailing in Gibraltar, at this point I was still living on my yacht in beside the runway of the Airport with a lot of other liveaboardson free illegal moorings.At this point my woman decided that she wanted to go back to the U.K. so we had an amicable split and she went back to the U..K. but we are still good friends to this day.
At this point I was ready for work again so I set up a small business cleaning and doing building refurbishment, I then met a lady who is now my wife and we started to buy old ruins in some of the small Andalucian villages and gradually got a bit bigger and bigger eventually working and living all over Spain during the last 20yrs and in that time I had to learn Spanish.
But still love travelling and will be off to Australia for a while in October.
These are the types of stories I love to hear. Well done you. You deserve every bit of happiness that comes your way and I wish you plenty more for the future.I came through my young life pretty well and served an apprenticeship as a Carpenter/Joiner and as an aside used to teach/help young people how to sail.
In the spare evenings I went back to college to get some more qualifications to become a Quantity Surveyor, got married when I was 21 and had 2 sons, I was always riding motorbikes as well.
One evening which was to change my whole life I was standing in my m8's forecourt of his garage when a young lad on a motorcycle came round a bend and lost it unfortunately I was in the way so took the full force of a sliding 650 right into me broadside which took me right out, breaking my rib cage,my right leg in six places below the knee, smashed up my left hip and tore it right out of its sockettaking the muscles with it, broke my pelvis in 8 places plus a few other broken bones to my right hand, I was then put into the intensive care for a few weeks then a general ward on traction with wires and pins everywhere which looked like one of the seaside postcards ,this was in April and I eventually came out in September in a wheelchair after having had some 5 fairly large operations including skin grafts , then I got a place allocated to me at a rehabilitation centre as an in patient from December until the end of March, the whole time was spent doing various exercises & swimming,at the end of the 3 months I could walk again albeit with a limp.
In the meantime my ex wife had decided not to run my construction company but to take up with the village post-master(w
ker)and took my sons with her.I then had the hassle of a divorce as well to contend withAs I had my own business it then took me 5 yrs to get my case to court, due to the fact that I had to get my case prepared and get an engineer in to prepare the RTA report.
At the end when the case came to court and I was paid my claim, guess where it went yep she got it all bar £13k.
So I started out again but as I wasn't allowed to carry anything I then got a job as a Contracts Manager for a year then I ended up as a director of one of the Souths largest Construction Companies, but after the accident it got me thinking about getting out of the U.K. especially as my ex had cleaned me out. So I bought a 26ft Sailing sloop and carried on working and after a year decided to sell the boat and buy a larger boat shell and fit it out for the big off.
It took me 2 yrs of working every spare evening that I had plus weekend and holidays until it was ready to go, in the meantime I had bought another house and had another woman,who wanted to go sailing ,so I sold the house and everything else that I had packed my job in and went sailing.
I took all my tools with me and sometimes when I stopped for the winters I worked and sailed in the summer, I eventually ended up after 5 years sailing in Gibraltar, at this point I was still living on my yacht in beside the runway of the Airport with a lot of other liveaboardson free illegal moorings.At this point my woman decided that she wanted to go back to the U.K. so we had an amicable split and she went back to the U..K. but we are still good friends to this day.
At this point I was ready for work again so I set up a small business cleaning and doing building refurbishment, I then met a lady who is now my wife and we started to buy old ruins in some of the small Andalucian villages and gradually got a bit bigger and bigger eventually working and living all over Spain during the last 20yrs and in that time I had to learn Spanish.
But still love travelling and will be off to Australia for a while in October.
I forgot to add that after I sold the boat, I bought a Honda 650 4 for transport in Gibraltar and re-built it eventually some years later I then bought a Harley- Davidson even though a bike tried to kill me, and rode all over Europe with my wife but unfortunately had to sell it 3 yrs ago when I had to have the 1st of 3 hip operations as I couldn't still ride in my mind safely.
So I sold the Harley and with the money I bought myself a Corvette C5 which is probably the nicest and most comfortable car that I have ever sat in.
And I can now walk without a stick and upright without any limp so I am sort of back to as normal as normal will ever be for me and I have re-gained my height back after 30 yrs, I am well chuffed, and looking forward to some 4x4 ing in Australia plus whatever else that I can find.
So I sold the Harley and with the money I bought myself a Corvette C5 which is probably the nicest and most comfortable car that I have ever sat in.
And I can now walk without a stick and upright without any limp so I am sort of back to as normal as normal will ever be for me and I have re-gained my height back after 30 yrs, I am well chuffed, and looking forward to some 4x4 ing in Australia plus whatever else that I can find.
It's taken me a while to build up the courage for this but here goes.
I had a happy childhood. Loving family, money, private schools etc etc, all the crap that is deemed necessary for a happy upbringing. Popular at school, all the birds blah blah blah. And then I discovered drugs. Usual story, the "gateway" drugs first; cannabis, alcohol leading to what I call the party drugs; speed, ecstacy, acid etc. There were good times at first. Helping the summer's supplies reach Ibiza and being rewarded with parties in "It" girls mansions was fun, and scary on the way over. I felt special when some coked up slapper from the cover of that months heat was dribbling her thanks all over me for keeping them all stocked up.
The upper classes take drugs in a different way to other people. It was very unusual if the drugs were not on the house. I remember one house had a couple of unused Penny Black stamps stuck on the ceiling in the loo, a rather rare stamp I'm lead to believe? Funnily enough, a member of the Rolling Stones still owes me a nifty...
But heroin and crack were something else and when they got a grip on me my life was never to be the same again. Gone were the days of holidays in the Algarve and nice motor's, partying with friends who worked in the city. Hello to street homelessness in the West End, ducking into doorways when I saw those same friends walk by. Being homeless is tough, really tough. Imagine walking into a city you don't know, where you don't know anyone and no-one knows you. You have no money, only the clothes on your back. Now survive. It's hard...and cold in the winter.
Prison spells followed rehabs followed prison's followed rehabs but I just could not get clean, no matter what I tried there was something that still needed to be medicated and only those drugs would do. I did AA/NA/CA meetings, CBT, even equine therapy! I tried leaving the country at my families expense but there's drugs everywhere. I came back a broken man.
Eventually through a mixture of numerous established and unorthodox techniques I got clean, and have been ever since. I am 28 this year and now work as a producer in the film industry. No-one knows of my previous exploits.
Joe
PS In the past a couple of PH's have PM'd me for advice/information on various drugs. I am happy to discuss my experiences in the belief that knowledge is power and the more you have the better decisions you can make. This is an inspirational thread and has encouraged me no end. Maybe this post will help someone in a darker place to see there is light at the end of the tunnel.
I had a happy childhood. Loving family, money, private schools etc etc, all the crap that is deemed necessary for a happy upbringing. Popular at school, all the birds blah blah blah. And then I discovered drugs. Usual story, the "gateway" drugs first; cannabis, alcohol leading to what I call the party drugs; speed, ecstacy, acid etc. There were good times at first. Helping the summer's supplies reach Ibiza and being rewarded with parties in "It" girls mansions was fun, and scary on the way over. I felt special when some coked up slapper from the cover of that months heat was dribbling her thanks all over me for keeping them all stocked up.
The upper classes take drugs in a different way to other people. It was very unusual if the drugs were not on the house. I remember one house had a couple of unused Penny Black stamps stuck on the ceiling in the loo, a rather rare stamp I'm lead to believe? Funnily enough, a member of the Rolling Stones still owes me a nifty...
But heroin and crack were something else and when they got a grip on me my life was never to be the same again. Gone were the days of holidays in the Algarve and nice motor's, partying with friends who worked in the city. Hello to street homelessness in the West End, ducking into doorways when I saw those same friends walk by. Being homeless is tough, really tough. Imagine walking into a city you don't know, where you don't know anyone and no-one knows you. You have no money, only the clothes on your back. Now survive. It's hard...and cold in the winter.
Prison spells followed rehabs followed prison's followed rehabs but I just could not get clean, no matter what I tried there was something that still needed to be medicated and only those drugs would do. I did AA/NA/CA meetings, CBT, even equine therapy! I tried leaving the country at my families expense but there's drugs everywhere. I came back a broken man.
Eventually through a mixture of numerous established and unorthodox techniques I got clean, and have been ever since. I am 28 this year and now work as a producer in the film industry. No-one knows of my previous exploits.
Joe
PS In the past a couple of PH's have PM'd me for advice/information on various drugs. I am happy to discuss my experiences in the belief that knowledge is power and the more you have the better decisions you can make. This is an inspirational thread and has encouraged me no end. Maybe this post will help someone in a darker place to see there is light at the end of the tunnel.
Nolar Dog said:
That's fantastic Joe! Well done for coming through it. 
Indeed, glad you made it through It always makes me cringe on PH when people flippantly discuss this and that drug as I know of a few people that ended up at rock bottom like you did - unfortunately they didn't have the strength of character that you do to pull themselves out of it.
MadOne said:
Kneetrembler said:
My story is a bit of nothing but here goes.
I came through my young life pretty well and served an apprenticeship as a Carpenter/Joiner and as an aside used to teach/help young people how to sail.
In the spare evenings I went back to college to get some more qualifications to become a Quantity Surveyor, got married when I was 21 and had 2 sons, I was always riding motorbikes as well.
One evening which was to change my whole life I was standing in my m8's forecourt of his garage when a young lad on a motorcycle came round a bend and lost it unfortunately I was in the way so took the full force of a sliding 650 right into me broadside which took me right out, breaking my rib cage,my right leg in six places below the knee, smashed up my left hip and tore it right out of its sockettaking the muscles with it, broke my pelvis in 8 places plus a few other broken bones to my right hand, I was then put into the intensive care for a few weeks then a general ward on traction with wires and pins everywhere which looked like one of the seaside postcards ,this was in April and I eventually came out in September in a wheelchair after having had some 5 fairly large operations including skin grafts , then I got a place allocated to me at a rehabilitation centre as an in patient from December until the end of March, the whole time was spent doing various exercises & swimming,at the end of the 3 months I could walk again albeit with a limp.
In the meantime my ex wife had decided not to run my construction company but to take up with the village post-master(wker)and took my sons with her.I then had the hassle of a divorce as well to contend with
As I had my own business it then took me 5 yrs to get my case to court, due to the fact that I had to get my case prepared and get an engineer in to prepare the RTA report.
At the end when the case came to court and I was paid my claim, guess where it went yep she got it all bar £13k.
So I started out again but as I wasn't allowed to carry anything I then got a job as a Contracts Manager for a year then I ended up as a director of one of the Souths largest Construction Companies, but after the accident it got me thinking about getting out of the U.K. especially as my ex had cleaned me out. So I bought a 26ft Sailing sloop and carried on working and after a year decided to sell the boat and buy a larger boat shell and fit it out for the big off.
It took me 2 yrs of working every spare evening that I had plus weekend and holidays until it was ready to go, in the meantime I had bought another house and had another woman,who wanted to go sailing ,so I sold the house and everything else that I had packed my job in and went sailing.
I took all my tools with me and sometimes when I stopped for the winters I worked and sailed in the summer, I eventually ended up after 5 years sailing in Gibraltar, at this point I was still living on my yacht in beside the runway of the Airport with a lot of other liveaboardson free illegal moorings.At this point my woman decided that she wanted to go back to the U.K. so we had an amicable split and she went back to the U..K. but we are still good friends to this day.
At this point I was ready for work again so I set up a small business cleaning and doing building refurbishment, I then met a lady who is now my wife and we started to buy old ruins in some of the small Andalucian villages and gradually got a bit bigger and bigger eventually working and living all over Spain during the last 20yrs and in that time I had to learn Spanish.
But still love travelling and will be off to Australia for a while in October.
These are the types of stories I love to hear. Well done you. You deserve every bit of happiness that comes your way and I wish you plenty more for the future.I came through my young life pretty well and served an apprenticeship as a Carpenter/Joiner and as an aside used to teach/help young people how to sail.
In the spare evenings I went back to college to get some more qualifications to become a Quantity Surveyor, got married when I was 21 and had 2 sons, I was always riding motorbikes as well.
One evening which was to change my whole life I was standing in my m8's forecourt of his garage when a young lad on a motorcycle came round a bend and lost it unfortunately I was in the way so took the full force of a sliding 650 right into me broadside which took me right out, breaking my rib cage,my right leg in six places below the knee, smashed up my left hip and tore it right out of its sockettaking the muscles with it, broke my pelvis in 8 places plus a few other broken bones to my right hand, I was then put into the intensive care for a few weeks then a general ward on traction with wires and pins everywhere which looked like one of the seaside postcards ,this was in April and I eventually came out in September in a wheelchair after having had some 5 fairly large operations including skin grafts , then I got a place allocated to me at a rehabilitation centre as an in patient from December until the end of March, the whole time was spent doing various exercises & swimming,at the end of the 3 months I could walk again albeit with a limp.
In the meantime my ex wife had decided not to run my construction company but to take up with the village post-master(w
ker)and took my sons with her.I then had the hassle of a divorce as well to contend withAs I had my own business it then took me 5 yrs to get my case to court, due to the fact that I had to get my case prepared and get an engineer in to prepare the RTA report.
At the end when the case came to court and I was paid my claim, guess where it went yep she got it all bar £13k.
So I started out again but as I wasn't allowed to carry anything I then got a job as a Contracts Manager for a year then I ended up as a director of one of the Souths largest Construction Companies, but after the accident it got me thinking about getting out of the U.K. especially as my ex had cleaned me out. So I bought a 26ft Sailing sloop and carried on working and after a year decided to sell the boat and buy a larger boat shell and fit it out for the big off.
It took me 2 yrs of working every spare evening that I had plus weekend and holidays until it was ready to go, in the meantime I had bought another house and had another woman,who wanted to go sailing ,so I sold the house and everything else that I had packed my job in and went sailing.
I took all my tools with me and sometimes when I stopped for the winters I worked and sailed in the summer, I eventually ended up after 5 years sailing in Gibraltar, at this point I was still living on my yacht in beside the runway of the Airport with a lot of other liveaboardson free illegal moorings.At this point my woman decided that she wanted to go back to the U.K. so we had an amicable split and she went back to the U..K. but we are still good friends to this day.
At this point I was ready for work again so I set up a small business cleaning and doing building refurbishment, I then met a lady who is now my wife and we started to buy old ruins in some of the small Andalucian villages and gradually got a bit bigger and bigger eventually working and living all over Spain during the last 20yrs and in that time I had to learn Spanish.
But still love travelling and will be off to Australia for a while in October.
Edited by ukwill on Monday 14th June 11:30
Left school at 18
Rough travelled around Europe and India (begging in India is tricky)
Joined the French Foreign Legion, ended up in the parachute regiment, lots of Africa tours, parachuting, diving etc.
Travelled around India/SE Asia with my soon to be wife for 6 months.
Spent a few years with the British Army, getting my Brit wings and having another jolly old time.
Joined the Old Bill in UK which had its interesting moments but was more for stability (with my soon to be wife) than anything else.
Started out on the private security contractor route during which I did some good courses and saw some interesting things.
Now much more pedestrian, 44yrs old, work settled down, 2 great boys, but at home I now run ultras/mountain marathons with my long suffering wife, I've done the marathon des sables twice and am looking forward to the next outing of 'team strolling jokers' in the scottish ultra next year. This year I've finishing my degree, twenty years late.
My first trip abroad after school probably influenced my life more than anything else I've done, it gave me a taste for adventure, a sense of 'just go for it', I realised I could be quite cheerful in fairly dire circumstances and also made me realise that a lot of people don't have a fraction of the chances I have in life, so best to make the most of them.
I would quite happily do it all again. No regrets.
Rough travelled around Europe and India (begging in India is tricky)
Joined the French Foreign Legion, ended up in the parachute regiment, lots of Africa tours, parachuting, diving etc.
Travelled around India/SE Asia with my soon to be wife for 6 months.
Spent a few years with the British Army, getting my Brit wings and having another jolly old time.
Joined the Old Bill in UK which had its interesting moments but was more for stability (with my soon to be wife) than anything else.
Started out on the private security contractor route during which I did some good courses and saw some interesting things.
Now much more pedestrian, 44yrs old, work settled down, 2 great boys, but at home I now run ultras/mountain marathons with my long suffering wife, I've done the marathon des sables twice and am looking forward to the next outing of 'team strolling jokers' in the scottish ultra next year. This year I've finishing my degree, twenty years late.
My first trip abroad after school probably influenced my life more than anything else I've done, it gave me a taste for adventure, a sense of 'just go for it', I realised I could be quite cheerful in fairly dire circumstances and also made me realise that a lot of people don't have a fraction of the chances I have in life, so best to make the most of them.
I would quite happily do it all again. No regrets.
Well here goes.
I left school at 15 with no qualifications. Not because I was stupid, but I made stupid decisions when I was young. Its no good trying to hang with the 'cool kids' if you're just never going to be 'cool'. Besides I didn't know then that the dull lives they all went on to lead weren't even remotely cool.
But before that I'd always been interested in military things. I had all the WW2 books, I played at soldiers and when I was 12 I joined the cadets. So when I was 16 I joined the army as junior soldier. I knew I was bright enough to do something technical, but the lack of qualifications prevented that, or any notion I might have had of becoming an officer.
So on 28 April 1987 I reported to what was then the Guards Depot at Pirbright for my first day with the Junior Parachute Company of the Parachute Regiment. fk me that was hard! I pretty soon realised that although I was stil keen for a military career, the infantry - and the Para Regt in particular - was not for me, nor I for them. I completed the course and passed out, but instead of going to Depot Para as an adult recruit I transferred to the Royal Army Ordnance Corps. Again, my lack of quals kept me out of the technical trades and I became what the army called a 'Supply Specialist' but what everyone else knows as a storeman. I got my HGV licence when I was 17 and as I hated stores work I managed to wangle a post in the MT section. I spent my first few years driving off road trucks and Land Rovers, which is pretty cool when you're that age. In 1989 I broke my femur in a parachuting accident. I landed badly on the runway. If that wasn't bad enough I was nearly run over by as plane taxiing up the runway.
The army was very different in those days. Everything was geared towards the cold war and the only things that distracted us from the highly unlikely prospect of the imminent arrival of the Russian 3rd Shock Army was girls and booze. I say that like its a bad thing... The only operational tours were Northern Ireland and the odd UN number. This all changed in 1989 and 1990 with the end of the cold war and the invasion of Kuwait. And thats really when the interesting stuff starts.
I deployed to the Gulf and was in Kuwait when the Iraqis surrendered. When we came home I was told not to unpack as I was going back out on the Kurdish relief operation in Northern Iraq with 3 Commando Brigade. I saw lots of interesting stuff there and was left under no illusion about the brutality of Saddams's regime of the feelings of the Kurds about that. While there I caught an infection which brings on a form of arthritis. I still have this and it caused all sorts of problems later on.
But despite having done these things I was still a private soldier and was still dissatisfied with my role in the army. I decided to do something different, or if I couldn't, to leave. I applied to transfer to the Ammunition Technician trade, which is responsible for looking after the army's ammunition and explosives, as well as being the lead service for counter-terrorist bomb disposal. My officers had recognised some talent in me and had recommended that I go forward to the selection, despite the dearth of qualifications. I passed the selection, then passed the course, coming top. You have to spend the first few years doing fairly dull stuff - its seen as serving an apprenticeship - but I did that and passed all of the other courses that came my way. In 1994 I did my first tour in Northern Ireland as EOD Team No 2 - or the bomb disposal operator's assistant... I drove the wheelbarrow robot. In doing so I helped deal with a number of serious incidents in South Armagh, including one where a helicopter was brought down with an improvised mortar.
A posting to Germany followed that, with tours to Croatia and Bosnia. Most of the fighting had finished by then, but that meant I was able to tour the country, doing what we do, and see the state of it. I was struck at how beautiful it was, bullet holes notwithstanding, and how friendly, pleasant and similar to each other the people were. It was amazing to think they had been murdering each other not too long before.
In 1998 I was promoted to Sergeant, posted back to the UK and I qualified as a No 1 IED operator - ie the mug who actually deals with the bombs. I spent a few years criss crossing the south east of England, mainly clearing up WW1 & WW2 stuff. The army also sent me to Australia and Kenya. In Kenya I was injured when some dozy tt dropped a grenade in front of me. I still have the fragments in my neck. In 2001 I qualified as a High Threat Operator, which meant I could deal with IEDs in places where the baddies are actively trying to catch you out. Back then that meant NI, so off I went. This was at the time of the Holy Cross riots and the marching season protests and we were kept busy, mainly dealing with loyalist devices, but the dissident republicans were always there. There wree a number of car bombs at that time, but none seemed to make the news on the mainland. After that tour I took a month off to train as a game ranger in South Africa. Lots of tracking the big 5 in the bush, and I won a giraffe dung spitting contest. So there!
I then had two years in Cyprus, where I was responsible for the bomb disposal that never happened there. In 2003 everything changed again with the build up to the invasion of Iraq. I didn't go, but did get to spend a lovely few months in a tent in the Jordanian desert. A close friend was killed dealing with UXOs in Iraq.
After that I had another three and a half years in Northern Ireland. This was mainly a desk job, but I also did a few tours on the teams while I was there. One of my roles was custodian of all of the historical incident reports going back to 1969. I began reading through these, as I had always wanted to know what incidents lead us into doing bomb disposal the way we do. I started writing a paper on this. My boss showed this to a visiting academic and after a few hoops were jumped through I was accepted onto an MOD funded research programme which should result in an MPhil. So I've gone from having no qualifications at all to being a post-graduate research student in one fell swoop. While I was in NI my old arthritis from Iraq came back and my hips crumbled away like a piece of extra mature cheese at the end of a very long dinner night. I spent a year on crutches before having both hips replaced.
In 2007 I was promoted to Warrant Officer and posted to west London, where I am now. I ran the team that covers this part of the UK for three years, and in that time did a Weapons Intelligence tour in Iraq. Rather than dealing with the devices, I would recover them after they had been rendered safe and carry out the first exploitation on them, trying to find out how they worked and to see what patterns were emerging in the insurgents' MO. I really had to struggle to get on to that tour as the doctors were reluctant to sign me off as for it after my operations. An earlier deployment had been cancelled for the same reason. But I persisted and eventually they relented and let me go. Unfortunately, they'll never let me go to Afghanistan. One of my hip replacements came loose a few months ago and I've just had it re-replaced. I don't like this. How can I tell my guys what's what when some of them have done stuff that I haven't? Besides, four of my friends have been killed there and the trade is absolutely strapped for qualified blokes (the High Threat course has a higher failure rate than SAS selection) so I feel as though I should do my bit there.
I was due to leave this year and was looking forward to it. In my spare time I've been running a business buying and selling classic cars, and I was going to do that full time. But I've been asked to stay on for another two years to train similarly minded fools and I've agreed to it. But I will leave in two years time, or maybe before then. Who knows whats next? The car business? Some consultancy in my 'day job' field? Maybe the academic stuff will take me in a different direction entirely - I like the idea of writing but don't know if I'd be good enough to do it for a living, or where to start.
Unlike most people who have posted on here, most of my excitement and interesting stuff has been supplied for me. I really admire those of you who have done the stuff you've done off your own backs.
Blimey, that was a long post. Do you think anyone will read it?
I left school at 15 with no qualifications. Not because I was stupid, but I made stupid decisions when I was young. Its no good trying to hang with the 'cool kids' if you're just never going to be 'cool'. Besides I didn't know then that the dull lives they all went on to lead weren't even remotely cool.
But before that I'd always been interested in military things. I had all the WW2 books, I played at soldiers and when I was 12 I joined the cadets. So when I was 16 I joined the army as junior soldier. I knew I was bright enough to do something technical, but the lack of qualifications prevented that, or any notion I might have had of becoming an officer.
So on 28 April 1987 I reported to what was then the Guards Depot at Pirbright for my first day with the Junior Parachute Company of the Parachute Regiment. f
k me that was hard! I pretty soon realised that although I was stil keen for a military career, the infantry - and the Para Regt in particular - was not for me, nor I for them. I completed the course and passed out, but instead of going to Depot Para as an adult recruit I transferred to the Royal Army Ordnance Corps. Again, my lack of quals kept me out of the technical trades and I became what the army called a 'Supply Specialist' but what everyone else knows as a storeman. I got my HGV licence when I was 17 and as I hated stores work I managed to wangle a post in the MT section. I spent my first few years driving off road trucks and Land Rovers, which is pretty cool when you're that age. In 1989 I broke my femur in a parachuting accident. I landed badly on the runway. If that wasn't bad enough I was nearly run over by as plane taxiing up the runway.The army was very different in those days. Everything was geared towards the cold war and the only things that distracted us from the highly unlikely prospect of the imminent arrival of the Russian 3rd Shock Army was girls and booze. I say that like its a bad thing... The only operational tours were Northern Ireland and the odd UN number. This all changed in 1989 and 1990 with the end of the cold war and the invasion of Kuwait. And thats really when the interesting stuff starts.
I deployed to the Gulf and was in Kuwait when the Iraqis surrendered. When we came home I was told not to unpack as I was going back out on the Kurdish relief operation in Northern Iraq with 3 Commando Brigade. I saw lots of interesting stuff there and was left under no illusion about the brutality of Saddams's regime of the feelings of the Kurds about that. While there I caught an infection which brings on a form of arthritis. I still have this and it caused all sorts of problems later on.
But despite having done these things I was still a private soldier and was still dissatisfied with my role in the army. I decided to do something different, or if I couldn't, to leave. I applied to transfer to the Ammunition Technician trade, which is responsible for looking after the army's ammunition and explosives, as well as being the lead service for counter-terrorist bomb disposal. My officers had recognised some talent in me and had recommended that I go forward to the selection, despite the dearth of qualifications. I passed the selection, then passed the course, coming top. You have to spend the first few years doing fairly dull stuff - its seen as serving an apprenticeship - but I did that and passed all of the other courses that came my way. In 1994 I did my first tour in Northern Ireland as EOD Team No 2 - or the bomb disposal operator's assistant... I drove the wheelbarrow robot. In doing so I helped deal with a number of serious incidents in South Armagh, including one where a helicopter was brought down with an improvised mortar.
A posting to Germany followed that, with tours to Croatia and Bosnia. Most of the fighting had finished by then, but that meant I was able to tour the country, doing what we do, and see the state of it. I was struck at how beautiful it was, bullet holes notwithstanding, and how friendly, pleasant and similar to each other the people were. It was amazing to think they had been murdering each other not too long before.
In 1998 I was promoted to Sergeant, posted back to the UK and I qualified as a No 1 IED operator - ie the mug who actually deals with the bombs. I spent a few years criss crossing the south east of England, mainly clearing up WW1 & WW2 stuff. The army also sent me to Australia and Kenya. In Kenya I was injured when some dozy t
t dropped a grenade in front of me. I still have the fragments in my neck. In 2001 I qualified as a High Threat Operator, which meant I could deal with IEDs in places where the baddies are actively trying to catch you out. Back then that meant NI, so off I went. This was at the time of the Holy Cross riots and the marching season protests and we were kept busy, mainly dealing with loyalist devices, but the dissident republicans were always there. There wree a number of car bombs at that time, but none seemed to make the news on the mainland. After that tour I took a month off to train as a game ranger in South Africa. Lots of tracking the big 5 in the bush, and I won a giraffe dung spitting contest. So there!I then had two years in Cyprus, where I was responsible for the bomb disposal that never happened there. In 2003 everything changed again with the build up to the invasion of Iraq. I didn't go, but did get to spend a lovely few months in a tent in the Jordanian desert. A close friend was killed dealing with UXOs in Iraq.
After that I had another three and a half years in Northern Ireland. This was mainly a desk job, but I also did a few tours on the teams while I was there. One of my roles was custodian of all of the historical incident reports going back to 1969. I began reading through these, as I had always wanted to know what incidents lead us into doing bomb disposal the way we do. I started writing a paper on this. My boss showed this to a visiting academic and after a few hoops were jumped through I was accepted onto an MOD funded research programme which should result in an MPhil. So I've gone from having no qualifications at all to being a post-graduate research student in one fell swoop. While I was in NI my old arthritis from Iraq came back and my hips crumbled away like a piece of extra mature cheese at the end of a very long dinner night. I spent a year on crutches before having both hips replaced.
In 2007 I was promoted to Warrant Officer and posted to west London, where I am now. I ran the team that covers this part of the UK for three years, and in that time did a Weapons Intelligence tour in Iraq. Rather than dealing with the devices, I would recover them after they had been rendered safe and carry out the first exploitation on them, trying to find out how they worked and to see what patterns were emerging in the insurgents' MO. I really had to struggle to get on to that tour as the doctors were reluctant to sign me off as for it after my operations. An earlier deployment had been cancelled for the same reason. But I persisted and eventually they relented and let me go. Unfortunately, they'll never let me go to Afghanistan. One of my hip replacements came loose a few months ago and I've just had it re-replaced. I don't like this. How can I tell my guys what's what when some of them have done stuff that I haven't? Besides, four of my friends have been killed there and the trade is absolutely strapped for qualified blokes (the High Threat course has a higher failure rate than SAS selection) so I feel as though I should do my bit there.
I was due to leave this year and was looking forward to it. In my spare time I've been running a business buying and selling classic cars, and I was going to do that full time. But I've been asked to stay on for another two years to train similarly minded fools and I've agreed to it. But I will leave in two years time, or maybe before then. Who knows whats next? The car business? Some consultancy in my 'day job' field? Maybe the academic stuff will take me in a different direction entirely - I like the idea of writing but don't know if I'd be good enough to do it for a living, or where to start.
Unlike most people who have posted on here, most of my excitement and interesting stuff has been supplied for me. I really admire those of you who have done the stuff you've done off your own backs.
Blimey, that was a long post. Do you think anyone will read it?
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