When I left the sea in 1986 I was a bit of a fish out of water. Worked for a while at MOD Donnington. Then tried selling encyclopaedias for Britannica, total sales NIL; (I simply don't have the heart to be a salesman, perhaps not enough BS in my DNA,) then worked for BT climbing poles, not a bad job but crap pay and there came a time up a pole on Biddulph Moor in the middle of winter trying to sort out thin telephone wires with frozen hands when I thought :
"**** this."
So then I joined GCHQ which was ok. But the Cold War ended and they started to wind it all down. (I mean, how bloody unlucky is that … ?)
(They've since wound it all back up again, aint that the way of the world ?)
Still that gave me some computer time so I ended up working in a Devon Community College and looking after the systems. Not brilliantly paid, and noisier than a super tanker engine room, but strangely, not that different a job than I had at sea. You were pretty much your own boss, doing something nobody else knew much about.
Nice way to slide into retirement, although I still do a bit at the village school … just helping out really.
Funny old business is retirement.