Birthday Treat

 Front entrance

 Interesting history to the harbour 

 Family life in the fishing village

 Some of the children dolls

 Early photo of Irsha street

 Ex ships figure head

 Looking over to Instow from the museum 

 Nice reading

What a birthday treat

For my birthday really did not want to go far, always hated driving on a Friday's when working, everyone was in a hurry to get back home for the weekend yet there are more accidents on a Friday then any other day of the week.

We live by the sea and I just wanted a relaxing day. So I decided to have a visit to the Appledore Maritime museum been there many years ago but it was a quick visit.

First it was a walk on the beach at Instow with Beau, then a trip over to Appledore for lunch at the Seagate Hotel where doggies are allowed in the seating area. Then the rain came down in fact it poured down but we were going to visit the museum. Was not disappointed it was better than I remember the exhibits & displays were excellent a really enjoyable birthday treat.

Had some lovely presents and thrilled with my books especially one which came from the Falklands, our dear friend Penny & her partner are working in the Falklands for the Attorney General office. Ros used to work with Penny & have been friends ever since. Penny knows I am a radio ham and also knew about the story of the radio ham who was the only guy in communications with the Falklands when the war was on still have the paper cuttings to this day. So to receive a book called The Silent Listener was exciting because that is the sort of book I like to read & collect which take pride and place in the radio shack/study. The other book which is a great read is Bradshaw's Railway guide only a facsimile but the same book used by Michael Portillo on his excellent BBC2 railway program she also got me the Monty Don & Secret Listener. Wendy another friend from Worcester gave me the SAS survival guide in the wild, on land or at sea. Also had money for the radio fund :-)

Came home and started and completed the 3 bottles of Champagne well it was a special birthday.

My Official BT Retirement Day

One of many photos for my ID cards

4th July 2014 it is my 60th birthday and it would have been my official retirement day from BT you may already know that I took early retirement from BT six years ago.

1988 after working for family business I joined British Telecom one of 1,500 new recruits across the country best job I have ever had.

I joined as a Major Works Copper & Fibre cable jointer. Joined at the time of major changes within the company, exchanges were going over from Strowger Analogue to Digital and Worcester was expanding with two massive housing developments so at the beginning after safety & jointing course around the country life began with at the time endless overtime and I have never refused overtime. There were times we were working 7 days a week & always worked on a Saturday for overtime in fact all the years I worked I only had a Saturday off for when we went on holiday.

In the group we had teams  that were UG and OH cablers plus jointers I would be teeing in cables to transfer the exchanges and large cables were being pulled in to the housing estates for new PCP (green cabinet) on the side of the roads which we then had to joint.

Five years in I had a lucky break, computers were being brought into controls and changing from a paper control to electronic, I was into computers with my first ZX81 then a Commodore 64 and Amiga. The new PC as we know it today came out the Pentium 1 my first one cost £1,800 which was a lot of money in the early 90s anyway I was asking the manager in the control could I borrow a keyboard to get my typing skills up as the new computers had word & excel, the reply was you interested in computers! yes was my answer! so would you like to work in the Manual Works Control was his reply! I never looked back.

I got my Technician (T1) promotion then 12 months later got my Senior Technician (ST) promotion and was the computer geek of the office ha ha. This all happened with in 8 years.

My manager also thought I would be a good candidate for acting manager and to become a manager. I did all the management courses the main one was First in Line over many months. I took on my first acting mangers job for a period of 12 months in Horsley Fields Wolverhampton with another office in Walsall looking after 30 field engineers doing the work I first started with. I knew all the engineers from working in the office on a works queue and issuing them work. I loved the job, but because I lived in Malvern I was pipped to the post by a local guy for the managers position. So it was back to the office to cover for the office manager & looking after the queues of work.

The office worked changed with technology and the engineers were being issued with laptops to get their work so the manual works control was closed & I became a planner on short duct & cable jobs.

Then an opportunity came up in Stoke on Trent! as an acting manager in a different part of the company to do with sales I was to take on 18 redeployees who at the time were not very motivated with all the different moves they had. After a difficult start with the union involved we got down to work & the office was a complete success. I must say at this point I was also working weekends on restoring a house in Malvern.

 From this

 To this

The senior manager was so pleased with my work in Stoke on Trent he offered me the job and I still have the paperwork to this day a very proud moment in my life. Sadly due to it being office based and not having a works van anymore and us having a really old car and some nights taking well over 2 1/2 hours on the notorious M6/M5 to get home I refused the position. The senior manager tried everything to get me a company car but they were only used for field managers. So it was back to the Worcester office for me.

Was back a few weeks and a new manager in the office decided to close his Worcester office and keep open the Peterborough office even though he lived in Worcester! but he did get highly promoted for it and he is still in Worcester to this day, I am still a little saddened by what he did to everyone.

So I became a re-deployee! but not one for sitting around applied for jobs and became a Network Auditor with having to be a fountain of knowledge to all the engineers with phone constantly ringing because they did not want a fail on their work. I worked in Gloucestershire which was a massive area and on average was doing 150 miles a day in works van & inputting all the checks on PC in my home office. One day an opportunity arose to live & work in North Devon even though the house in Malvern was completed after 12 years, Ros knew I loved the sea and she kindly said lets do it and move to the coast.

After only 12 months in new job the group was being reduced, Ros was not settling  or coping in North Devon very well due to bad start from roofer, plumber and neighbour we also were rear ended at 60 mph when waiting to do a right turn her nerves was shattered she has never driven since. Ros is always the first priority, I loved my job but reluctantly at the time took early retirement at 54 to be with her full time. Got to say never looked back we are on a limited budget, we do not have a luxury lifestyle, we have never been abroad, both always worked full time. Ros has said many times leaving at 54 is priceless especially living near the sea, a dream I held for a long time. Now you can see why the blog is called Living the Devon Dream.