I held a senior exec's post but found that I preferred working with my hands as well as my brains and that sitting behind a desk wasn't for me, my wife knew that I was less than happy and when a good friend died suddenly I was offered his position. I realised at that time the board room was not for me.
I arranged a decent financial package with the group and moved to a small village in Telford where we bought an ex coaching Inn in a terrible state.
I took a job as a maintenance engineer and we were happy.
Then they built the M54? almost to my door step. Property prices rocketed, and when a neighbour started selling drugs we had had enough. We waited a few months till the boy finished school then moved here to Wales.
The house was in an appalling condition. No electricity, hot or cold water nor drainage, but it had a large garden, and as we had moved many times we decided this was where we would settle.
There was no work locally, a pump manufacturer was looking for a fitter till they found out that I had been a pump designer and decided that I was over qualified.
As the house was in such need of work I signed on for unemployment pay. Locally there was a warehouse that did house clearances and I was there one day looking for some hand tools when all the lights went out.
The boss had bought a washing machine that was supposed to be in working condition and that was the result.
"I'll sort it for you" says I, and so I became self employed repairing domestic appliances.
My son moved back to Telford and found that six months later he hated the crowds and came back home, so I hired my daughter to sell appliances for me in our local market and my son joined me in reconditioning and service work.
The house was two beds, an outshut kitchen that had been tacked on the side with daylight showing between the two buildings, two sockets, the walls of asbestos cement and the ceilings of insulation board. Rain water came in under the walls.
The septic tank didn't work and the pipes were all broken up. The garden was so over grown that it was some weeks before we found the boundaries.
When the local electricity company sent a chap to replace the downed incomer he refused to connect us till I removed all the spiders.
We shared the placed with Mice, Shrews, Bats, Foxes, Badgers and Toads, and the place was under water when it rained.
It was fantastic!!!!
Roy.
