Zambia World Wide

In 1992 my older son Gary suggested we spend a few weeks in the United States and tour the Mid – West which I agreed was a great idea, something I would probably not have thought of doing by myself. I will not write about the trip as that is to come later but as we travelled back to Salt Lake we stopped overnight at a small town called Wendover. In the morning we carried on to Salt Lake. We had not travelled far when we saw a sign to the left for Bonneville Salt Flats, well that was it. I would go no further until we had been and seen the salt flats. Even though we were a little short on time, Gary gave in and we drove to the raceway. When we arrived, for me it was a dream come true. At the side of the track was a large board dedicated to Donald Cambell. The board showed the raceway and a history of the land speed records achieved by Donald Cambell. An added bonus was that they were holding world speed record attempts that day. People often talk about the luck of the Irish but that day was certainly our lucky day. We were approached by an American while we were reading the board, he asked if we were there to watch the record attempts. We explained that we had come across the raceway whilst travelling to Salt Lake, our holiday was over and we were returning to the UK the next day plus we also explained that we were very low on cash and could not pay the entrance fee. I am now rambling a bit, just bear with me, I will get to the point. He said that would be fine, it would be a shame to have travelled the distance that we had and not see the speed trials, so invited us to stay as guests which we were delighted to do. It was a really great day and for me as I have said a dream come true. I will continue now from where I deviated, I just felt this was the right place for this paragraph.

The Lake District is very difficult to describe, it really has to be seen and preferably under the right weather condition to appreciate it’s true beauty. As I progress I will probably write about some of these places again as I have in later years returned to many. It was about this time that I should have been leaving school but I decided if possible I would like to take an apprenticeship, preferably in the engineering field, although at this time I was not sure which trade I wanted to go into. It was not possible to start an apprenticeship until I was sixteen (we left school at 15yrs old back then). With the support of my parents it was decided I would spend a year at the local college to improve my education (which was something I needed to do as I was never the keenest of scholars). At the same time I could obtain more information about the various trades and formulate some idea of the type of apprenticeship I would like to go in for. That summer I took a job in a local factory to earn some money so that I could help my parents with the purchase of books etc. that we knew I would need for college. This year I had decided to do my very best to achieve the results at college that I was sure I would need if I was to get a good apprenticeship next year. I did finally for the first time in my life study hard and get the results I needed. I never forgot the help my parents gave so that I could achieve the results I got. I had the qualifications I needed to try and get a good apprenticeship but still did not know which trade I wanted to go into as I was interested in all aspects within the engineering field. I applied for an apprenticeship with a local company and was successful in getting an apprenticeship as a boilermaker. I worked for this company for about six months, when my father asked why they had not issued the apprenticeship papers which would have made my apprenticeship legally binding, they used the excuse that it was not necessary until the completion of the apprenticeship, this was illegal and was as things turned out in my favour. I had been offered an apprenticeship with the Central Electricity Generating Board as an electrical fitter. It was the beginning of a lifelong change and stood me in good stead for the rest of my working life. Whilst training and working for the power industry I met my first girlfriend who really was a super person to be with and we had many great times together.

It was at this time I started riding motorcycles, I also got engaged to this girl (Pamela although she preferred to be called Pam). We really thought we were made for each other at the time, life just could not get any better. It was during this period of my life that I first visited Scotland. My parents had rented a caravan at Fort William for two weeks and they invited Pam to join us on this holiday, which was a great idea, well I thought so. I knew we would have a great time, a whole two weeks together. Since we could not all travel in my dads car, it was decided that I would take the bike with Bryan my older brother riding pillion. The rest would travel in the car. We visited many places in Scotland such as Stirling, Isle of Skye, Ben Nevis and many more places in the Highlands. Unfortunately the weather was not in our favour for most of our stay which is perhaps one of the reasons I have no wish to return to Scotland for future holidays. It was shortly after this holiday that Pam joined the Mormons, she had always been religious but this was a step to far. However I did attend a number of meetings but soon realised it was not for me and by mutual agreement we decided to end the engagement and go our separate ways.