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"Dunno if this has been done before.... \nI seem to have been spectacularly bad at choosing for a long time.  Then when I finally got it right, Govt. decided I as wrong. \nWhen I left school with 6 'O' levels, I wanted to be an 'analytical chemist', preferably working in the 'Forensic Service', which back in 1965, was a section of the Home Office. \nI asked the 'so called' 'Careers Master' at school about Forensics.  \n\" Well I have a 'First' in Chem from Oxford and they wouldn't have me.. so what chance do you think you've got?\".  \nYou can't beat a bit of encouragement. \nI had Chem, Phys and Biol at O level,  plus 2x English and French, but failed Maths. \nSo, Forensics was out. \nAfter several failed applications for assorted 'scientific' jobs, I was pretty much ordered by my Dad to get down to the Coal Board recruiting place .  ( Was it called Forest Dene?) on the road to Mansfield. \nSo, I went down there and had the usual 'cough', 'fill this' ( 'What?... from here?   ) etc., then entered a room with five blokes facing me. \n\" What do you want to be lad?\" \n\" Student Apprentice\" \n\" 'Ave yer got Maths?\" \n\" No but....\" \n\" Next room lad\" \nIn the next room. \n\"What do you want to be lad?\" \n\" Student Apprentice\" \n\" You tryin' to be funny lad?\" \n\"No\" \n\"What do you want to be lad?\" \n\" What can I be?\" \n\" Craft Apprentice\" \n\"Oh\" \n\"Well lad........?\" \n\"OK\" \nI could write a book about my experiences as a 'Craft Apprentice' with the Coal Board, but it only lasted less than a year.  I learned a fair bit about lots of things but it really was very badly taught and organised.  And it finally dawned on me that I didn't want to spend the rest of my working life on shifts, like my already physically shattered Dad. \nTo be fair to the bloke in charge of us all, he realised I wasn't happy and arranged for me to go for interview at the Coal Board Labs at Cinderhill.  I went along there and was offered a job. \nSo I was soon wearing a white coat and spending my days analysing coal, mine air samples, water samples, etc. etc.  It was enjoyable work. \nBut... in order to progress, you had to pass ONC/HNC and eventually degree level Chemistry.  I could easily do the job and I walked the Chem, but the separate Maths exams continued to defeat me.  The annoying thing was that most of the Maths for Chem was simple Arithmetic and not beyond me.  But to get on I needed to grasp Trig/Geom/Calculus etc... \nSo.. I got out and went selling crap door to door briefly before I became a 'Fab DJ' with the Magic Roundabout Disc Show and we conquered the 360 Club, the Carlton Hotel etc.. \nWhilst doing that.. I had assorted jobs in construction, and carpets and hosiery.  I dug a tunnel down Cantrell Rd for a sewer.  I built some flats in Basford ( both with a bit of help) and I knitted surgical hose in Nottingham.. down Fletchergate.... now that WAS weird..!! \nEventually, I tired of being an incredibly famous and much loved DJ.  Stardom was too much for me, so I buggered off to Doncaster in pursuit of the lovely Jenny, who I'd met a couple of years earlier in Wales. \nAfter most of a summer of hippyish dissipation, that didn't work either..  ( Are you detecting a pattern here?) \nSoon, I took off with a friend in a Dormobile and we drank and fished our way around Lincolnshire and Wales for a bit, meeting some young ladies along the way. \nI pursued one of those to High Wycombe in Bucks and went down there.  Another construction job was followed by  work in a factory making plastic bags..  It's more interesting than you'd think, but the lovely Holly and I didn't quite make it work . \nThing is.  For all of the above I had a fab time.  I was wandering about doing largely what I pleased.  I don't regret any of it. \nBut I wasn't quite living up to my supposed intellectual potential as a Grammar School lad.  To be honest I got so wrapped up in being a Scientist, I was blinded to other possibilities and nobody else raised them..  Which is a big part of the point of this thread. \nTired.  Part 2 to follow....   \nCol \n"
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