I left school at the end of my lower 6th year, and after working for a short time I volunteered for the R.A.F, where I trained for a number of years in electronics, Radar specifically. I can still remember freezing on top of a Valetta, changing an antenna at the time of the Berlin Air Lift.
After my 8 years I worked for a short time on Bristol Freighters at Lydd airport, ferrying cars across the channel, and then, after passing tests, I went to Montreal to work on flight simulators (after specialized training, of course). I spent the next 4 years at a Canadian Air Force base way north of Quebec City, where none of the townspeople spoke English ! Luckily I had kept up with my French, so I didn’t have much trouble.
Then, after a short spell in Nova Scotia, my company sent me, as Engineer-in-charge, to work up in the arctic circle on the D.E.W. line (Distant Early Warning ). This was at the time of the cold war.
In the summer of 1960 my Company sent me to Germany to install and service a fighter simulator. I also worked for a number of months in France, where I commuted 34 miles, half in France and half in Germany. When the service contract finished I left, moved to England, joined Redifon, who sent me to Los Angeles where I spent most of the next year installing and testing a large Boeing aircraft, with a 6 ton moving cockpit!!!
Good job offers led to my moving to America and working on the simulator and also on the actual aircraft as upgrade engineer on the electronics and instrumenation side.
After 5 years I met my wife at a French Club. She is German, and went for the same reason I did; to keep up with the language. Shortly after that, we moved to Germany, where I worked briefly for an analogue computer company and then for Bosch on numerical control equipment. The humidity in Germany affected my wife so we decided to come back to America (which is where the trouble started ).
Many years before the application for a ‘green card’ only took a few months, we had been told at the Embassy that we could return when we liked, once we had the card. But it turned out that we had to go through the whole process again, which took over two years, and the stress caused me to have a cerebral haemorrhage and be paralysed on one side. Not wanting to waste that two years, I recovered arm and leg movement in a month or so, and after another month i passed the physical to come back over here. 4 days after we arrived I started work at a local hospital.
After 7 years, at the age of 59, I succeeded in winning a competition for a position with a Siemens subsidiary, travelling in the western States installing and servicing large diagnostic ultrasound machines in hospitals. I retired at 65 but worked for a short time measuring Radon in houses.
I didn’t mention it earlier, but of course now I read, write and speak quite fluent German, and I probably have at least 50 of the Maigret series books (in French ,of course) so I keep up with that as well.
Three years ago I started having trouble keeping my balance, which was traced to spinal cord compression. I agreed to surgery, and the first pre-test showed I had an almost complete blockage of a heart artery, so I had a bypass instead, and then 4 months later bits of vertebrae were removed spacers added, and everything screwed back together. Things are still slowly improving, but luckly, no pain at any time !!
I spend my time now building radio-controlled models; aircraft, boats, helicopters, and a submarine. I also work in the garden and on an old Citroen that I have.
If I write any more you’ll need a newsletter just for me, so I’ll shut up and send this off’