MY YEARS BETWEEN

15yo and 18yo

I left Modern Secondary School at the age of fifteen with no qualifications. It was in the first class to stay the extra year. At school I was considered a dunce. At home I was just an object of ridicule. I was an easy person to make fun of.

Strange to say, that I was the only one of the four children to leave school and work in an office. A similar situation arose when I went into the Royal Air Force as a National Serviceman. My two brothers were allocated unskilled roles while I became a skilled aero-engine mechanic. Later, when I had a Mensa test, I scored 153! Who were stupid; those around me; or me?

I always had an interest in scientific hobbies. The photo here was taken at the camera club to which I belonged. Handsome fellow; was I not?! I was about 16yo.

I use the name Ace Ventura on http://www.worlds.com

See the similarity in hair style!!

Photography was my favourite hobby. I had a Thornton & Packard half-plate camera. (It took photos about 8" X 6"). The materials I used were mostly ex-government surplus.

Here is a photo that I took of Ivor and Bert, my brothers. The floodlights were made out of tins and pudding basins. I did my processing in the toilet, and as I was in there for hours I was not a popular person! Mostly, I worked at weekends when they were all at the pub.

I also had a hand cranked toy projector that used 35mm film. I fitted a motor and bigger reel holders to it and gave shows to the other kids. I was getting old film from the cinemas.

At the end of the 1939/45 war it was difficult to get radios. I made some and sold them. They were primitive two valve sets. I bought old junk sets and cannibalised them. I found the circuit diagrams in the Pear's Encyclopaedia 1936 version. I have just drawn the circuit opposite that I learnt over 60 years ago.

My other interest was in motor bikes. We had a shed that had been our air-raid shelter and I fitted it out with every tool possible. I stripped and re-built bikes. At one time I built ECA specials and sold them. Looking back, they must have been "death traps"!

When I went into the RAF my dear brother Ivor bought the tools for £5.

My brothers did not seem to have the intelligence to anything other than drink!

Between the ages of 15 and 18, I had thirteen jobs. Five were in the baking industry.

First, I was an office boy. It lasted two weeks. A woman was not nice to me and slapped my face. So, I slapped her back! Then I left.

I made clothes pegs, delivered coal, served in a chemist shop, rode a cycle delivering repaired footwear and some jobs I can't remember.

The longest was as a fireman on steam locomotives. I "drove" the express engine Britannia, number 600001, from Colchester to London. Well, I held the handle and looked out for the signals while the real driver was firing the beast! I couldn't put the coal in the hole quickly enough!

I earned a good wage as a fireman. Before going into the RAF I had a long break, to get my tax back, during which I took mum, Dolly and her son Jimmy to Felixstowe for a holiday. Photo opposite

I didn't have much of an early love life. I didn't loose my cherry until I was nineteen. That must be some record!

We all played about with the local girls. There were the usual kissing games and "truth or dare".

When I was 15, I was at the local "flee pit", and the usherette came and sat next to me and touched me up! So, I couldn't have been that ugly! I moved away!!

As I remember it there were many times when mature women were a bit amorous to me. I was naive and unwilling.

My first "girl friend" was Phyllis C. She used to come to my house and sit on the loo while I did my developing. (The photos you dirty people!!)

I took out a girl I met in a bakery that I worked in. But it did not last.

When I went out with the boys at the later stages of my teen years I was always the one left with the ugly bird!

So ends my love life and my story up to eighteen.

AUTOBIOGRAPHY