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Came ashore in 1975 and trained to become a computer engineer (hardware) with a company called Burroughs Machines, which does not exist anymore. Computers were in their infancy then and we fixed the machines down to component level as opposed to chucking the whole thing in the skip these days. Logical move as I was an Electronics Officer at the time and the transition was relatively easy albeit completely different technology. In 1977 was transferred to start up the Burroughs distributorship in Saudi Arabia but that was not such a pleasant experience. Saudi was tough in the early days, the distributor was a rogue and my wife had a hard time. Transferred to a much better company which was the Data General distributor 1n 1979 and enjoyed that as Saudi was expanding rapidly and my career grew to eventually run the whole Computer Division After 7 years in Saudi I moved over to do the same job in Abu Dhabi until my son's education brought about a move back to the UK. Joined Ferranti Computer Systems as International Marketing Manager in 1985, stayed with them for a few years, went back to Saudi for a Division of Ferranti just after the Gulf War and stayed for 18 months. Ferranti went bust so became ME Marketing Director for consultants Kennedy & Donkin based in Dubai and that was a great job. K&D closed all their international offices down in 1996 and I was made redundant. Only job offer in the ME was to go back to Saudi and I had done my time there so my wife and I came back to UK and started our own business, a print and copy franchise. Things went well, we became franchisees of the year and bought another business in the same franchise locally. Sold up in 2007 and been retired in Kent since 2008.
Would never have predicted my career would go like that but then again that is probably true for most of us.
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