GrumpY Old Guy
B
orn in Colwyn Bay in North Wales back in December 1959, the world was very different. The cold war was very much a thing, the Cuba crisis was a few years away (16 - 28 October 1962), rationing had only ended a few years before (4 July 1954).I was the eldest of 4 when my parents divorced ( I wasn't even a teenager). My childhood became a really horrible time that I don't like to remember. So when I reached the age of 16, I ran away to a flying circus.
T he Royal Air Force was my home for the next 18 years, I worked on the electronics side of Ground RADAR and Communications system, with my last 5 years working in a specialist department that wrote computer programs to test circuit boards.
By the time 1994 came around, the RAF had shrunk in size, and I was working on the System Management team of a £3.9 million computer system. Computers had interested me since I wrote my first program back at school in 1974.
After getting some real world management experience with a charity in Leicester, I worked in the calibration team of a small Ultrasound Testing manufacturer in Milton Keynes before getting back to IT at Telematica (the development team for Trafficmaster). After Telematica was bought out by Trafficmaster I worked on the IT Team for them, leaving in 2006.
Moving back to North Wales to set up my own IT Company as a Managed Service Provider in November 2006, I ran the company and worked with a specialist telephony firm. They were great days until the owner of the Telecoms company developed cancer. My friend Mike past away a few years ago. By that time, I was focused on Cybersecurity, got my Masters Degree in IT & Cybersecurity at Wrexham University. We are almost up to date. It's 2025 and after some great projects in Cybersecurity with some lovely people and amazing companies, I started to feel tired, very tired. So I packed it all in. We have plans to travel and I want this website to record the different places and the amazing days we have.