for Dinoaurs - a wander down memory lane

<3 xx>

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I was born in December 1963, in Cheltenham – mainly known as The Centre of The Cotswolds. My mother and father at that time lived in a friend’s caravan, I know nothing is normal about me whatsoever! Even then as a baby, it must have been cramped – I remember we did not stay there very long before moving into a 2 bedroom ground floor maisonette. Back then it was all open plan gardens, I always remember a woman called Mrs Hesk – she was known, as the witch of the close, a very strange and odd person who had plants, mostly flowers all the way along her lounge window sill. If we walked across her piece of lawn, she always banged her hand on the window! After a while we got wise and ‘ducked-down’ and as we passed we would bang on her window, for ‘payback’. She even used to tell our parents to stop annoying her, but our dad had no time for her, I remember my dad telling her “Look, exactly who started this business in the first place, he it was YOU, trying to frighten children off a piece of lawn that belongs to the council and not you. I will tell my children the same, but if you continue to irritate them, then they will probably do the same back”. After that we never heard from her, apart from Xmas when she pushed a Christmas card through the door.

We never had much to do with other neighbours in the close, they lived there but many worked at GCHQ – and those people keep themselves to themselves due to their jobs. We lived in that close for many years, I took an interest in one of my mum’s friends that lived in Prestbury, near Cleeve Hill. Her husband built his own model helicopter using balsa wood, and wired it all up, and even built the main remote to control the flight. That amazed me, I was only around 7 or 8 at the time – and seeing something like this was incredible, the guy himself was an ex-RAF person, I never knew what he actually did there. His model building was amazing and I used to spend many weekends with him watching build various planes, locomotives, cars, etc. One he built that blew me away was a fully working steam train, all the parts he made himself, and it was incredible. I remember one year he come around our house, on my birthday, I had no clue what he was bringing in a huge box. I always remember my mum saying to me “Uncle Harry is here for you Les!”, I rushed to find out what it was, he said be very careful as you open it.”, he also said “Happy Birthday Les, I always remember you taking such a big interest in my work on modelling!, so I brought you something you never seen me working on before!”. I was dumbfounded on what it could be, and I thought I had seen loads of his work previously. Anyway, I opened the box – and all I could say was, how did you build something like this? It was an exact replica of Sandringham Castle and grounds, including small houses situated in the grounds. All the doors and windows opened and shut, but he said “take it out the box very slowly, theres more to it than what you see!” – “Remember what I told you, always pay attention to detail!” – The whole model was made from balsa wood, and hand painted which I had seen him do many times in my life. As I removed it from the box I noticed one small house moved, I thought strange perhaps he hadn’t glued it properly… How wrong I was, the small house had very thin copper pipes leading under the main board, so he said here you go some fuel and a miniature lighter. I filled the small tank he had made, and lit the fire hole below – waited a few minutes and put the little house back on this incredible model. One by one, the little houses started to emit steam, to look like they had coal fires… I was gobsmacked, there was at least nine little houses with steam puffing out their chimneys. I thanked him very much, he said there is other parts, but I need to finish painting first then you can have them. I went out with him to his car, and asked him how come you built me something like that? And, these words I always remembered – he said “You came along, I did not really know much about you, apart from what Rita (his wife) had told me. She said you were a boy that is very inquisitive, and experimenting with electrics, and chemicals.” He said you are like a son to me, you’re very clever and you pick things up, you are different to most people we have visiting, some of my models, I created I based on some of sketches you left here many times” while watching me build new models. He said I inspired him to design vehicle’s even he had never thought of. I knew they had tried for children, but back then you did not have the tests that we have today. 

They lived in a 3-bedroomed house, 2 bedrooms had nothing but planes and jets attached to the ceilings. And shelves were full of cars, all were hand-painted and the detail was incredible, even a Ford Model T.

My mother lost touch with Rita her friend, they moved and so did we around the same time. But sadly the model my Uncle had built was damaged during the moving, I could not fix it, a heavy was put on top and split while in transit. To this day, I am still gutted at what I lost during that move.

After a while, I settled down and started making and design my concepts. Bear in mind, I was only young 11 years old at most. Yet, I built my first radio receiver using my own design aged just 10, it only powered a small crystal earphone but loud enough for anyone to listen to… what made it totally unique was that the box I built it in was only one inch square, and what people were amazed by was that it used no power supply, no batteries or anything else! My dad was praising me for weeks, because he could not get over it.

While I was designing electronic products, my artwork was also taking off, I started selling my artwork – every year from the age of 5 years old I had work displayed in the Cheltenham Art Museum every year until I was 16. While I was very creative not just in Art but also Woodwork, Metalwork and this will shock you, even Needlework!! The needlework I did for exams was one of those pieces where you have a large flat piece of wood, covered in black felt. Then I drew a large galleon ship on the felt, then had the job of banging in copper nails every so many millimetres apart. Then came the last part, adding the gold 1mm braid from point to point until the ship took form. I went on creating various pieces of creative art in the next 2 years, to bring it up to exam standards.

Before I left school, I seen a job in an electronics company not far from where I lived. I applied for it, got it with no problems – now, to most people around that time getting a job in electronics required at least a CSE pass in Physics, but there was no spaces left, which is why I ended up in Needlework. But when it came to Work Experience, I applied to an Aviation Company – got in with no problems once I showed them what I could do in with electronics, by which time that was analogue and digital, and I taught myself everything I knew. I spent a week at that company, and they asked if I could put a display together that would thrill their visitors! I said sure, but I only have 5 days in work experience from school, so if you don’t mind ordering the products needed that would be a huge advantage. If I could pull this off then even without taking physics at school would mean I could get in the industry I wanted to be in, to me that would be a good start.

I think it was about a month later, I had to start at the Aviation Company. So, I left my house at around 7.15am – got there by 7.30am, but had to wait until someone opened up the place, which was not too long. The manager turned up and I had to introduce myself and what I would be doing roughly… I had already designed circuitry for the company display, and showed the rough blueprints to the manager, he looked surprised when he asked me where I got the ideas from, I said well I had to create something along the lines of Aviation, and to display it to your customers – he said yes, but you have included some clever circuitry here with digital electronics. Then he asked me if I was familiar with the chemicals I asked him to order, I said yes why is that? I just want to make sure we are safe in that respect. I said if you have any questions let me know, and I will gladly explain.

The Work Experience Project

Firstly, this was something that had never been done before, it was a prototype and I was only 15 years old. I will basically break it down what I had designed….  A digital control box, with a manual override should anything fail (basically, a “fail-safe”). The box was fairly large and robust with numerous transformers which would fire a sequential order, controlled by digital circuitry and thermistors for isolation. I know you’re probably lost by now… Anyway, the first 3 days work I had no issues, but I needed to do a test on the box plugged in the mains, that wasn’t an issue the main issue was firing a smoke bomb type of effect, obviously indoors this would give off a lot of smoke and a short blast of fire. The only chemicals was household matches, and a wooden tube with a wire wrapped around it. I asked if I could test it outside, bearing in mind this company backed on to an airport! Well, I got the all clear… a couple of people were taking their morning breaks – I carried on and plugged in the controller, fired-up the main device (this was a sub black box that allowed 3 further connections for use!). I set it to manual fire, and pressed the trigger... this fired the electric to the test which was about 20 feet away… I used a metal bucket to set off the household matches, it all went fine, and it flared upwards then smoked for about 2 minutes. The guys that were watching me asked what was in that bucket mate…lol I said, just standard household matches! They look surprised on how I got normal matches to flare up by connecting them to the mains, well actually there was a bit more to it than that. But it worked for what I needed it for. When Friday arrived it was time to show the project off… I just hoped everything was timed via digital controllers, worked on the timers I had setup. Anyway, I pulled off the display with no problems – a couple of guys asked how I pulled off the trick with household matches. All I said was “I’ll give you a clue, never play with safety matches!” They look stumped, and didn’t have a clue on how it was done. I always remember the Manager gave me £5 for doing it, and asked could it be done again, I said yes all you need is a few large boxes of safety matches and pull the ends off carefully. He also gave me photographs they had taken while I wasn’t watching I guess.

After telling the interviewer at this company I applied for a job at, he said you are certainly a person that will do well in the outside world. I did have to go back to school a few times because I was taking additional ‘O’ Level exams. One of which, the manager wanted to see my results when I eventually got them. Well, I passed all subjects with very high levels, except one, Woodwork – which I failed on because I couldn’t be bothered to take all my course work back. That was not an issue, I wasn’t really that mad on Woodwork anyway, to me it was not something I would be using in life. I could do DIY anyway, and my aim was for a job that required applying or creating designs, whether in wood, metal, plastic, electronics, or computers (which I had just bought!) – That was when I bought and built my first computer the Sinclair ZX80 with 1k of RAM…WOW

There is more to come…