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On this page you can read about Ploy
and myself, our lives before and after we met, how we met, our travels
together and the countries we have lived in, our families, our cars,
our houses and the things we like and dislike.
The
page was last updated on 15th
October 2006.
Who am I?
I
was born in Portsmouth on the south coast of England at lunchtime on
7th November, 1957: to my knowledge this was the only event of note
that happened in the world during that month. As my father was in the
REME (Royal Electrical
and Mechanical Engineers) division of the British Army he was away
a lot when I was young and we moved house a few times as we stayed
in tied housing. Most of my early years were spent in a small town
in England called Liphook and in my later to teen years we moved back
to Portsmouth to live with my mother's parents. All of my interest
at school was in science, but I left school at 16, excited by the prospect
of doing real work and earning money, (I had a Saturday morning job
in a bakery cleaning the huge mixing machines and stamping on cockroaches).
I left school with 7 'O' levels, all science except for one English
Language and a Grade 4 'CSE' in Spanish and started work as an apprentice
electronic engineer, and I have worked in that field all my life. Dreams
of becoming an astronomer, my childhood passion, were effectively dashed
by this move as I was never to go back and do a degree until my recent
Open University studies in Art History (although I did get technical
qualifications required for my job). I have been married twice, my
first wife died soon after we divorced, and my second wife is from
Thailand and we have now been married almost 5 years. I worked for
various companies, large and small, and also spent 11 years running
my own company, successfully at first, although latterly it was to
end in failure: returned to employment and then emigrated to Singapore.
The latest adventure is I am changing my job again and moving to Waterloo
in Canada in mid November and then in October 2007 probably moving
to San Jose in California.
My Mum and Dad
I was never as close to my Mum and
Dad as I see some families are to their's, perhaps something to do
with being an only child, and maybe also the because of the independence
they engendered in me.
 However
there was no doubt that they loved me and they were always there when
I needed them, especially when I was having so many problems with my
business. I miss them a lot now, especially as my life has changed
so much. They would be so happy to see how Ploy has changed me, mellowed
me, stood up for me and how she made me do things I thought were impossible
before. And they would be ecstatic over my achievement of the art history
degree. I particularly miss my Mum because of our shared
love of opera. How my Dad tolerated my Mum and me listening to a newly
purchased scratchy recording of some long dead tenor that we were playing
somewhat loudly for hour upon hour I will never know.
I
realised writing this that I actually knew very little about my parents.
Luckily my mother had kept a few old photographs and from the few snippets
of information I remembered I was able to piece together some sort of
story. Both my Mum and Dad were born in the same year, 1930. I have no
photographs of my Dad when he was a baby, but I do have one of my Mum
when she was 6 weeks old: amazing to think this photograph is over 76
years old now. The other photograph on the left I also assume, because
of the clothes, to be her and her Mum.
My Dad's family were Scottish and I
have a record of my Dad being confirmed at Holy Trinity church in Edinburgh
when he was fifteen years old. I have some faint recollection that this
would become an issue when they married as they married in a registry
office (my mother was not christened I seem to remember) and later when
I arrived they did not have me christened either. My mother never attended
church other than for sight seeing. He used to sing in the church choir
and would often mention this when my Mum and me were playing our opera.
The photograph on the left is my Dad, aged 18.
They
married on 18th April 1955 in Portsmouth Register Office. My fathers
job was Progress Chaser at Aircraft Factory and my mothers was a Factory
Hand in a rubber factory, a job I know she hated. They
were both living in Portsmouth then, my Dad in Wallington Rd, Copnor
and my Mum in Gruneisen Rd, Stamshaw. Both my Mum and Dad's fathers
were in the Navy, my mother's Dad listed as a pensioned Able Seaman
and my Dad's father as a skilled labourer. The small photograph of
my father on the right is said to have been at Hayling Island (a resort
island next to Portsmouth) in June 1954, presumably taken my my Mum
whilst they were courting. I would also assume the photograph of my
Mum on the bus is also from around this period.
Maybe because
my father was away a lot when I was young, we were never what you would
call close. Yet as an engineer, initially in the army and then after
his commission ended, with the School of Electrical and Mechanical Engineers
(SEME), as a civilian instructor,
you would think there was some common ground. While I was still living
at home, we certainly spent a lot of time on maintaining our cars (many
a cold winter Sunday morning changing a wheel bearing or brake shoe),
but once I moved away from home, I never had the common ground I did
with my mother, namely opera. My Dad joined the British Army on 8th
September 1948 when he was just under 18 years of age and he was discharged
on 30th April 1970, after a commission of 21 years, 235 days.
His commission included detachments
in Borneo, Malaysia, Germany and Aden. The photograph on the right is
annotated on the back with the names of all the soldiers in the photograph
(and their nicknames). It was taken in Ellesmere, Shropshire but unfortunately
is not dated. The names are: Back Row left to right; Gardener (Digger),
Walulate (Bill), Robb (Jock), Halls (Sgt. Shoder), Perring (GooGoo),
Buffy (Anything), My Dad, HurrWood (Nasher): Front Row left to right;
Stagg (Eric), Souher (George), Kimby (Doug), Steadman (Larry), Edwards
(Anything), the latter two also known as Taffi.
I am sure my father enjoyed
the army, and at his funeral many ex-colleagues, many of which my Mum
only knew by name, turned up. If it wasn't for the time he spent away,
which I know he hated, he might have extended his commission.
I would have been thirteen years old when he left the army, and I don't
remember it being a great event: but then my parents often kept things
from me, they only told me of my Dad's cancer more than one year after
he was diagnosed.
One of the best things I did ever did
for my Mum was to buy her tickets to see Turandot in London with Gwynth
Jones and Franco Bonisolli. It took a lot to get my Mum to go (she felt
out of sorts being with the 'hob knobs' as she put it), but once there
she was genuinely really excited. We went back a couple of times more
(I remember Otello with Vladimir Atlantov and I think an Il Travatore
where we had the second stand in tenor as the first two were both ill
- not what you want to hear at those prices in that opera).
Our
first real family holiday together was to Malta, and I think the first
time either I or my Mum had been abroad. We went at Christmas which was
unusual because Christmas was quite an event for us. Also my Mum looked
after her Mum and Dad (we effectively were staying their house although
they largely confined themselves to the front room) which restricted
the opportunities to travel. I do remember going camping with my Dad
at Seaview on the Isle of Wight for a week. I had a fantastic time (and
I think he did too). After that trip to Malta I think my Mum got the
travel bug and until he was too ill to travel they visited Germany (with
me and my first wife), Verona in Italy (where my Dad had to endure yet
more opera) and Cornwall, but never anywhere further afield.
I
always felt there was a certain loneliness about my Dad, I think he would
have liked more children, (my mother was told she should not have any
children because of her congenital heart problem but they still had me),
and although happy amongst family and people, and a great traveller,
I think it is from him I get my comfort in being alone. I remember after
he retired he drove up to Scotland by himself to visit old friends and
family, planning the trip like a military exercise. He came back rejuvenated.
The photograph of my Mum in the garden
was taken in out house in Talbot Rd. Southsea in August 1978. This was
after I left school and at a guess I think I was now living away from
home in Essex. My Mum loved her garden although she had the grass concreted
over and restricted herself to two flower beds. Her garden was a real
splash of colour in the summer. Late in life my Mum and Dad moved out
of Talbot Rd. and into a small apartment in Cosham, Portsmouth. The 3
bedroom house was proving difficult to maintain for them (they annually
painted the entire exterior of the house by themselves, with my Mum doing
the high bits because my Dad was afraid of heights). I think my Mum hated
the apartment (she always protected her privacy), and her garden was
just a small patch outside.
My Early Life
I remember only a little about my
early life. I was told we moved quite a lot, Portsmouth, Scotland,
Leigh Park (near Portsmouth). The first house I have firm memories
of was in Liphook, then a sleepy village, and my first school was Bramshott
school, a small country primary school. The photograph on the left
is my class,
when I was 6 year's old: I am third in from the left in the middle
row. I have very fond memories of Liphook, the bluebell wood where
I would go walking with my Dad, running down to the local newsagent
to get the latest issues of the Beano and Dandy comic, the school Christmas
dinner where I cried all the time (I have
no
idea why), even the jelly and icecream did not console me, the time
I was so late from school (because I was helping a friend find his
school handout in the woods) my Mum was crying when I got in and the
police had been called (it didn't seem that late to me), the bee's
nest at the bottom of the garden, the trip to Portsmouth to see my
grandparents in our Ford Prefect car and so many other things.
My earliest firm memory is
Leigh Park. I do not remember the house, except it was a fairly drab
council house situated on a U-shaped road (I remember I rode my bike,
complete with stabilisers, out onto the main road once and nearly got
killed riding out in front of a car. Everyone came out their houses to
look such was the screech of the tyres). My Dad had built a sandpit
in the large garden and there was also a swing where I would sit for
hours singing something or other.
One reason for those trips to Portsmouth
was to see my grandparents. We went to see my father's parents every
Sunday as far as I can remember, at least while my grandfather was alive.
Later the visits for my Mum became rarer, eventually just being for Christmas.
I do still remember their dig, a poodle called Pixie, the piano where
I learned the opening bars of 'Danny Boy' (inevitably), and my grandfather
playing on the lawn with me (they had lawn, we had grass). The photograph
of me with my Grandad was taken in the summer of 1963 when I was five
years old.
I
don't know why I became fascinated by astronomy but I do remember my
parents buying me a small refracting telescope for my fourth or fifth
birthday, and by my early teens I was even considering doing the O-level
in it (I did end up doing it a year early). I met Patrick Moore and appeared
in a television program with him. But leaving school at sixteen finished
the dream, and perhaps it wasn't meant to be. I did apply for a job as
a technician in the Australian Observatory which may have put me back
on track, but they didn't even reply, and occassionally my company came
across applications that roused my interest again (like a photon counting
camera). But I did go to Cornwall to see the total eclipse, I saw Bennett's
comet and Halley's comet, and spent many a freezing night on my back
in a field observing meteors.
I
only ever represented my school at one event, swimming. I was never
an exceptional swimmer, but I was competent and
we won a cup. I was already cynical even at that age, and was very
reluctant to be pulled into 'team' events, but I still I do still
look back with some pride at this high point in my sporting career.
It was possible that I could have done something in sport, but that
'school representation' thing stopped me from putting myself forward
for anything. I played football until it too dark to see the ball
and swam in the sea from dawn to dusk. I was passable at all sports
and quite good at others. I hated hockey. Now I occassionally swim
and get tired after a few strokes. This after a doctor once measured
my chest expansion in a medical and said it was the same as a professional
athlete. Ah! What might have been.I
left school at 16, the school was changing to comprehensive for the
A-level stream and a number of teachers, including my favourite ones,
were leaving. I remember two teachers in particular at my school, Mr
Owen the Chemistry teacher who ran a chemnistry club after school where
I would spend hours making chromatograms and Eglob, or Mr Bolge, the
Maths teacher. Eglob was a real eccentric, I remember he didn't talk
to me for about a week because we had played football on his beloved
hockey field, but he was a great maths teacher. He was unfortunate
enough to take the first stream of the 'new mathematics', which despite
his best efforts I am sure held me back from being really good at maths:
at college I had to re-learn maths.
After leaving school I got a job
at the Admiralty Surface Weapons Establishment at Eastney in Portsmouth,
effectively an apprenticeship. One
of the tasks in my first job was to measure the performance of merchant
marine radar and one part of this involved a trip to the sandbanks
near the entrance of Langstone harbour in Portsmouth. When the tide
was out and the banks were exposed two people would go out there
armed with radar reflectors and a walky-talky and under instruction
from the radar operator at base wander around whilst the radar performance
was measured. During the summer this was an enjoyable experience
but it was less so during the winter. On one particular day in
February our boat engine failed, but intrepid as always, I said, lets
row, it's not far. However the banks are not exposed for long and rowing
took us longer of course, so by the time we got there the tide had
already turned. As the tide started covering the bank the measurements
continued until eventually our boat floated away. I swam to retrieve
it (at this time of the year 20 minutes in the water should be enough
to see you off). When it floated away for the second time I nearly
didn't get it back and fell exhausted into the boat. Base kept giving
us instructions, but all of this escapade was curtailed when we were
visited by a coastguard helicoptor who kindly gave a lift back to shore.
All very exciting. I actually had the afternoon off work to go to a
concert (Robin Trower I think) in London and I remember telling my
Mum as I quickly changed clothes at home, "I might be on the news
tonight, I got rescued by helicoptor today". You can imagine her
reaction.
There
was only one person I have had a real crush on and that is the actress
Felicity Kendal: certainly she is the only one that I ever wrote to,
a long personal letter telling of how I watched her on TV and had just
been to see her in a play in London (which to be frank was a little boring).
I suppose she must have been in a committed relationship at the time
and later had lost my address. Why else could she have refused a real
ale drinking, astronomy loving, cricket infatuated, spotty youth of seventeen?
I did get a signed photo though
I never had a girlfriend until I was
sixteen, Sally from Leicester that I met when she was on holiday in Portsmouth.
That never really went anywhere and neither did Kim Parrott
from college: I never even dated her, and before I had a chance to do
anything (assuming I would have) she went and married her university
tutor: I wonder what happened to her?
Marriage for the second time
I
think I fell in love with Ploy at first sight (she did not with me
she tells me!). We have been together over five years now and this
short time has been a microcosm of a whole life together, so much
time apart, we bought a house, we sold a house, she came to the UK
for two years with all the visa traumas that go with that move for
a Thai person (and her prospective husband), and then our emigration
to Singapore. We have grown so close to each other now: we have laughed
(a lot) and cried (a little). When I met Ploy in Singapore
in February 2001, I had just broken up from my first (English) wife
and was renting a single room in a house owned by a couple young
enough to be my children, a situation brought about more by laziness
than financial considerations. I immediately went to Thailand so
see her again, a date that also coincided with her birthday. She
moved apartment and we bought some new furniture for it. I moved
out of my room and rented a nice 2 bedroom apartment and bought new
furniture for it too. I started washing again and she bought new
clothes for me. I started loosing weight (through choice, I was never
fat, but I was carrying excess baggage), and I joined a health club,
although after fifteen minutes on the bicycle I then sat in the sauna
for an hour. After three more visits during that year, on the fourth
(which also coincided with my birthday) we decided to apply for a
visitor visa for her to see the UK, and I duly arrived in Thailand
with a suitcase full of evidence. We got the visitor visa (one of
the most stressful mornings of my life during the interview, followed
by one of the most exhilarating afternoons once we were told we had
got it), and she came to stay for three weeks over Christmas 2001.
After that we decided that we wanted to stay together and we applied
again for another visitor visa, this time its issue a formality.
Whilst here on the visitor visa we decided to get married and we
married at Southampton registry office on 20th April 2002 in front
of a few friends. Ploy quickly got bored staying at home (well she
never really stayed at home as such, but she wanted to do something
with more purpose), and she started English and Computing lessons
and took a part time job at a sweet factory and then a cosmetic factory.
She then found out about a a full time job in Alton, about 50km from
where we lived and travelled back and forward from there every day.
If I hadn't already realised her strength and independance I realised
it then. We queued at Croydon for her FLR and ILR visas. We moved
from the apartment and bought a run down house (we had saved her
wages from her job and that became the deposit on our house), and
then spent enormous energy redecorating it, before a chance came
to move here which we did on February 24th 2004.
I
read the advertisement, Extras wanted for a movie to be made in Ealing
Studios, London, must speak Thai'. I asked Ploy, "Do you want
to be a movie star?" and I got the oft said reply, "Why
not?". So I sent away a brief c.v. and a photo. I had forgotten
all about it, but I got a phone call late one Friday afternoon, could
Ploy come up to Ealing on Monday for one week. She said yes straight
away. We had to be at the studio by 6.00a.m., so we left at 4.00a.m.
for the drive to London. Ealing studios looked a rather faded lot,
but the history is of course famous, Alex Guiness, Alistair Sim,
Peter Sellars, etc. etc. etc. I dropped her off at the studio, and
spoke to one of the people there. "Don't worry, she'll be fine,
we'll take care of her. Come and pick her up at about 6.00p.m." Then
it dawned on me, did I have to drive everyday up to London and back,
a good 90 minute
drive each way? The following week I was going to Taiwan on business
and I had to get a visa organized. I also wanted Ploy to come with
me so I had to get a visa for her too. Anyway, as it turned out,
I spent a lot of time travelling between Southampton and London,
I stayed with Ploy in some 'cheap' run down London hotels as she
had to start work so early every day, I did get the visas and we
left for Taiwan the following week, and my wife is now a movie star.
The movie was, 'Bridget Jones, Edge of Reason', and if you look carefully
you can see her in the Thai jail scene, behind the bars on the left.
The unknown in the photo is Renee Zellwegger.
Of
course we have been many times together to Thailand, but one visit
I remember particularly. It was for three weeks and I stayed in Ploy's
apartment in Bangkok. Towards the end of my visit it was my birthday.
Thai's don't worry much about birthdays, there was no heap of presents
waiting at the bottom of the bed for me, just a kiss and a 'Suk san
wan gert' (Happy birthday). However at night I was determined we should
go out, dancing maybe at Spassos'? But Ploy had other ideas. Near her
apartment was a favourite restaurant and bakery that we often frequented.
Ploy spent the day going to a beauty salon, and night time she took
me to this restaurant. She had ordered everything that I like, especially
the 'Poo Pad Pong galee', (Crab in a curry sauce, the curry is flavoured
with turmeric which is Pong Galee in Thai, literally prostitute powder
- what a wonderful language), and the evening finished off with a birthday
cake she had ordered, with the the only other table in the restaurant
joining in the staff in singing a fractured 'Happy Birthday'. It was
that night that cemented in my mind that Ploy was to be my future,
and that Christmas she was visiting the U.K. In April we were married.
We
went out for a BBQ meal in Thailand, not my favourite but Ploy likes
it and at 49 baht/person how can you complain. Ploy spoke to our very
cute waitress who was studying computing at Saraburi technical college.
Her father had died when she was young and her mother and sister fight
to make ends meet. She studies during the daytime and works at the
BBQ restaurant at night until 11p.m.: today was her first day. Ploy
then gives her 200 baht and her business card. 200 baht is a lot of
money in Saraburi, a tip would have been 20 baht. Ploy wanted her to
buy new shoes as her flip-flops she was wearing would soon give her
a problem walking for so long: and the business card, well that was
for her to call if she has a
problem as Ploy may have some work for her in her business. Ploy always
admires people that do not take the 'easy option', for this girl probably
marrying. For my part I said I would be quite willing to adopt her
but apparently the 200 baht will suffice. Oh well!
While driving in the car together
Ploy mentioned for my next birthday she would like us to take out (and
pay for!) some disadvantaged children who could otherwise not afford
to do so. She said our life is good now and we should do this and the
act of doing so ('tamboon' in Thai, or merit making), will help to
ensure we are also happily married when we are re-born.
On
our last day Ploy took me to a fortune teller. I had to choose a
single leaf from the plants in the garden and from this he proceeded
to tell all. Comfortingly I will live to be at least 83, still time
to finish that book then. He said I would be very rich by the time
I am 52 which would be nice to believe, but he did tell some things
like when Ploy and me first met that I fell for her straight away
but it took her some time to fall in love with me, which is true,
and also the fact I like the sea and boats (and I wasn't dressed
like a pirate at the time), and about the relationship between my
mother and me which was true. Anyway he was a very nice man and it
always nice to have nice things said about you, he said I was very
'jai dee' or 'good hearted'.
My
Family
 Although
I was an only child, that was not through choice: my mother had a
'hole in the heart' which meant that she should not have had children.
However my mother and father did risk me, and I suppose having achieved
perfection didn't risk anymore. However both my Mum and Dad had more
extensive families, My mother had four brothers and three sisters,
whilst my father had one sister and two brothers. I saw little of
any of my aunts and uncles: my Mum's mother and father lived with
us until they died, but I still had little contact with them, we
did not eat together and the only vivid memory I still have is kissing
them 'goodbye' after they had died, something my mother insisted
on me doing. We used to visit my Dad's family every Sunday, something
I hated doing only because I had to get dressed up. My Mum later
didn't come and it was just me and my Dad that visited everuy Sunday
morning (the reason my Mum didn't come was never clear to me). The
photograph on the left is my two grandmothers together on my Mum
and Dad's wedding day, and on the right my Mum and me visiting my
Dad's father.
 My
two grandfathers were both in the Navy and coincidentally both worked
on submarines. My Dad's father won several medals, and my Dad spent
quite some time later in his life putting together a sort of memorial
collection of them: I am slightly ashamed so say I have no idea what
the medals are or even what rank either achieved in the navy.
I only ever saw one of my Mum's
brothers once, (Vic I think his name was), and it caused quite a stir.
He just knocked at our door one night, having apparently been away
for some 20 odd years. He was looking for his mother, who had already
died the year before. He was working as a chef on the Isle of Wight.
He disappeared again a couple of days later never to be seen again.
I never saw anything of the other brothers that I can remember.
The sisters, however, were closer, although they had their ups and
downs. Brenda and Babs always seemed close and I think my Mum was closest
to Sylvie. Sylvie was the first sister to die: she was always fighting
a battle with her weight, and eventually it was her downfall. She did
live life to the full though and had four children; all boys.
One of my Dad's brothers (Duncan) and
his sister (Joy), lived with their mother until she died when they both
went their own way, both in their sixties by then. Duncan was rarely
at home on our visits, his work taking him around the world, but his
sister, Joy, was often there, as she had been forced to retire as nurse
because of a back injury sustained whilst lifting a patient. I almost
never saw the the other brother, Alec, or any of his family. Neither
Duncan or Joy ever married, so I was seen as the heir in my Grandmother's
eyes, so she was always disappointed I never had children.
Now I live
in Singapore I have little contact with any of my aunts and uncles.
We did go to see Duncan on one visit to the UK, but contact is now
largely limited to cards or a telephone call at Christmas.
My First Marriage
This
is the hardest part to write about: my first wife's death in late
2004 haunts me. Is it guilt? She died of cancer: her brother also
died of cancer at 40, so clearly there is a faulty hereditary gene
floating around, and if I had still been married to her the outcome
would have been the same. When we separated it came a shock to lot
of people, and even most of my own family sided with Hilary. From
the outside it would seem that I had left Hilary to go to Ploy but
these people did not know we had already been going to marraige counselling
and had been sleeping apart for two years. Meeting Ploy was the motivation
to do something about the situation instead of letting it drift.
I think it was convenient for Hilary to let everyone believe this:
she received a massive sympathy vote and I was cast in the role of
the unfaithful dirty old man (I mean a Thai girl, I ask you!). My
marriage was bracketed by relationships with Thai girls: maybe I
married too soon, on the rebound from Jumpa? But the marriage was
happy until the last three or so years. The big mistake was starting
the business: Hilary could never come to terms with that and when
things went from bad to worse at the end, she didn't cope well and
went into a depression. I am not the sort of person who copes well
with that ("Pull yourself together"), and so that was the
beginning of a distancing between us. I always told her she should
have married a bank manager with a steady wage and a nine-to-five
job. But I think, although her life ended too soon, we did have a
good life together. That first big cheque from our business, buying
a new car, our first house (although we sold that soon after marriage
to put the money into the business and for most of our life lived
in rented accommodation), our holidays in Cornwall and in New York,
the music and the concerts, our eccentric friends in the New Forest,
the huge all-night parties we held and she taught me how to cook.
I miss her as a friend. What a waste.
My Favourites
-
Sportsmen: Gordon
Banks, Gordon
Greenidge, Ilie
Nastase
-
Singers: Giovanni
Martinelli, Barbra
Streisand, Joe
Longthorne, Mel
Torme, Claudia
Muzio, Kate
Bush, Rosa
Ponselle, Vic
Damone, Tony
Bennett , Cyndi
Lauper, Colm
Wilkinson, k.d.
Lang
-
Guitarists: Jan
Akkerman, Joe
Satriani, Al
DiMeola, Robin
Trower, Steve
Vai
-
Composers: Verdi, Debussy, Puccini, Ravel, Rogers
and Hammerstein , Shostakovich
-
Colours: Yellow, Blue
-
Places: Saint
Agnes (Cornwall, UK), Edinburgh, Singapore, Thailand.
-
Painters: Rothko,
Miro, Kandinsky, Goya
-
Radio: Radio 4 UK, 'I'm
Sorry I haven't a clue' Radio 2 UK, Terry
Wogan
-
Buildings: Flat
Iron Building, New York (and Flat
Iron Building history)
-
Actors: Spencer
Tracy, Cary Grant, Walter
Matthau, Jack
Nicholson
-
Actresses: Jennifer
Jason Leigh, Vivien Leigh, Clara
Bow, Renee
Zellweger
-
Musicians: Midori, Hilary
Hahn, Arturo
Benedetti Michelangeli
-
Books: Cannery
Row, Any
Hilary Mantel, The
Ascent of Rum Doodle, The
Ascent of Man, Arthur
Ransome
-
Films: Bad
day at Black Rock, Airplane, Naked
Gun, The
Day the Earth Stood Still , The
Big Easy, The
Day the Earth Caught Fire, Schindler's
List, The
Day after Tomorrow
-
Cartoons: Tom and Jerry, Roadrunner,
Dilbert, The Far Side
-
Opera: Andrea Chenier, Turandot, Il Travatore
-
Musical: Carousel, West Side Story, Phantom of
the Opera (Ploy's favourite)
-
Wine: New Zealand Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc, Elysium, Guwurtztraminer
-
Food:
Tuna steak, Champ potatoes, Yum Moo Yaw, Larb Moo, Spanish style
chicken (a stew of chicken, bacon, tomoato and chorizo sausage that
I was once served at favourite restaurant called Champers: I owe
them a lot for helping me experiment with food), Yum Som-o, Yum Nua
Yang, Lamb Jalfrezi
-
Beer: Adnams
Old, (and also Adnams'
Old review), Beer Chang, Ringwood
Best
-
Animals: Boxer dogs, Sea Lions
-
Weather: Thunderstorms
-
Transport: Hovercraft,
Sea-planes
-
Flowers: Daffodils, Bluebells
- Smells: Jasmine, Leather, Old
Ironmonger shops, Freshly cut grass
Non-favourites
-
Smoking (both my parents smoked,
but I have never even taken a drag, except passively. I find the
smell horrid and the the attitude of a lot of smokers selfish).
-
Stupidity (Speaks for itself)
-
British Newspapers (really directed at the Mail
and Sun, offensive, persuasive, bigotted articles that do not report
news, but their opinion on the news and frighteningly (see Stupidity)
are believed by too large a proportion of the population. Hugely
influential and dangerous).
-
Television (probably the greatest invention of
the twentienth century reduced to producing crass, un-thinking, so-called
'populist' reality entertainment programs and soap operas. At least
it has helped me return to the radio and books).
-
Cats (pointless, selfish creatures).
-
Mathematicians (too clever by half and I am intensely
jealous of them. Most of the ones I have met have an intelligent
view of almost every subject. I probably do not mean statisticians
here).
-
Mushrooms (and particularly those
people who say, "I don't understand why you don't like mushrooms" or "But
they don't taste of anything, how can you not like them?". Well
if they don't taste of anything why bother eating them as they are
only water and as for the former, these people's diet usually excludes
all manner of things that I do eat, but I don't lecture them about
their likes and dislikes, do I?).
Anything Missing?
Ploy
and I have no children of our own. I have spent my life avoiding
children despite the fact that my parents always said I was 'good'
with them. But
life with Ploy is different, and Asian children are different to
the English ones, cuter, better behaved, and with more responsibilities
to the parents. We need someone to keep us in our old age! I guess
that as we both met quite late (I am 47 and Ploy is 44) that there
is not so much chance of it happening now but if it does, well as
Ploy says, "everything is 100% now, a baby would make it 120%".
I
am a dog person and always have been (except for those rats that
pass as dogs that are only fit for the BBQ). I have never owned a
dog, my Mum would never let me have one (although I did have a budgie
called Sausage that was too lazy to fly and walked everywhere). I
was really pleased to find that Ploy also loved dogs. yet we don't
have one. Ploy did have a dog for a while in Thailand to keep her
company, but she found she was leaving it alone all day whilst she
went to work so she gave it to a friend. Without doubt, in the future
we will own a dog. The baby and the dog were borrowed from a friend
for the purposes of the photographs.
Travels together
 When
Ploy first came to the U.K. it was for three weeks over Christmas
and I wanted to show her as many of my favourite places as I could.
We went, of course, to London, and I also booked a trip for us to
go to Paris for a couple of days. While in London we happened upon
a small fair in Leicester square where Ploy won an enormous Rupert
bear which I had to carry around London, including on the underground
(subway) and also on the train back to Southampton. I certainly got
some strange looks. We still have Rupert, he is entrenched in Singapore,
and favourite with any young visitors we have.
Whilst
in London we mostly wandered around the shops, but we did take some
time out to go round the London Eye which was very impressive, even
to a cynic like me. We were also 'lucky' enough to see some snow which
is quite rare for the south of England. We visited a friend in Winchester
whose children had spent the day making a snowman. However for
Ploy that was enough, sort of 'been there, done that'. She has never
shown any inclination to visit a truly snowy country!
The
main memory of the trip to Paris was the cold. Although the temperature
was hovering around zero there was a biting wind and drizzle which
made walking around quite an unpleasant experience, which was a shame.
Ploy did indulge herself with lamb though, in the restaurant on the
left, she had two main courses and I had one (well part of one),
all lamb cooked in different ways. I have never seen lamb in Thailand
although I am told it does exist, but it is very expensive so Thais
don't eat it.
Houses
I have lived in many houses but only
three or four have special memories for me. The first was a tied cottage
we stayed in in Liphook in Hampshire, U.K., I would have been about 5
or 6 years old at the timeThis wonderful old country house had a cellar
and a bee hive in the garden. I loved Liphook then, a sleepy village
with a bluebell wood; now it is a suburb of London and has lost all of
its character. I used to love the drive down to see my Mum's Mum and
Dad in Portsmouth. My Dad owned a rare two-tone blue Ford Prefect which
struggled manfully over Portsdown hill: if it was raining the vacuum
windscreen wipers slowed to almost stop making us almost blind.
The
second house I have fond memories of was a splendidly isolated rented
cottage in the New Forest, in a place called East End. I lived there
with my first wife for six years: the memories are as much the characters
we got to know in the area as the house. The local pub with its all night
sessions, the crazy drunken antics of men who should know better (the
impromptu naked swimming in the local leisure club swimming pool for
example: the manager offered us free drinks and towels if we would retire
to bar as we were frightening the children), the all night parties, the
free rabbits that greeted you as you came home from work, courtesy of
the gamekeeper, the squirrel pie that the pub dreamed up on the menu
(and popular it was too amongst the grockles).
The
next house was not so much a house as a room, rented from a young couple
in Southampton. It was where I moved out to when my first wife and me
finally split up. I only lived there for six months: Ploy was coming
over to the U.K. so I rented a two bedroom apartment for us before she
came. This was the second time that I had lived in a rented room and
in some ways, although I hated the more restrictive environment I did
like the freedom it gives you. That said the memories of this 'house'
are fond because it was a momentous time in my life, a new beginning
as they say.
The
last house was our last house in the U.K. Ploy and me were married and
she wanted us to buy somewhere and not rent (waste of money she kept
saying). I was nervous, I hadn't owned a house (or more accurately owned
a mortgage), for some 16 years. My company's failure had left me with
a bad credit history. Why did I worry, Ploy was here, everything is possible.
Of course it all worked out and we soon became proud owners of a very
neglected 3 bedroom town house in Southampton. Just over one year later
and we were selling it to move to Singapore, but how we worked on that
house. "You are an engineer, why pay for someone to do this work?",
she gently argued. "Well, I explained, I have not embraced success
in such DIY matters in the past". That was an understatement. But
try we did and we mastered plastering and re-wiring and laying floors
and digging gardens, not without some success. We transformed the house
I think we can say, and we were very proud of our work: B&Q were
our closest friends. Moving to Singapore should have been such a tear,
but with Ploy's encouragement it was just a new adventure, and as our
friends drove us to the airport for last time, we left with barely a
backward glance.
Transport
I
have only ever owned three cars; I feel great loyalty to the car
I purchase and hang on to it as long as possible. My first car was
a Hillman Minx which I purchased from my aunt, Joy. Throughout its
lifetime the car was resprayed, had new engines and gearboxes, and
many a frosty day was spent causing considerable damage to my hands
replacing various parts on it. By the time I parted with
it, I think it had done at least 150,000 miles. My second car was
a complete change, an Opel Manta, so sporty compared with the Hillman
and with a vinyl roof and sunroof and its bright bronze colour I
thought it really looked the part. This was Opel's answer to the
Ford Capri, but I thought much less a boy racers car and much classier.
Vauxhall later produced the Mantas and showed what could be done
with totally unimaginative styling. For me this was the only Manta
worth the name. I used the Manta to travel all over the country when
I started my business, but eventually I decided the time had come
to give the company a new image and I bought my only new car, a Honda
Prelude. I remember when I test drove  it,
when I came back from the run it took two days to wipe the smile
from my face. I bought the car in 1989 and it was only when I came
here to Singapore that I had to let it go: I sold it for just 80
pounds: by then it had over 300,000 miles on the clock and it still
had the all original engine and gearbox. I remember watching them
come and collect the car while we were packing everything into boxes:
it was strange feeling. I have never been passionate about cars,
and there isn't a car that I have really hankered after. When I had
the Minx I guess a Rover 3500 would have been nice; when I had the
Manta an Opel Monza would have satisfied; and when I had the Prelude,
I do remember glimpsing a Honda NSX with some envy. For now I have
no car, the public transport in Singapore is so good anyway and cars
are very expensive here. Ploy had a Nissan Frontier for our use in
Thailand although she has recently given that to her workers and
bought a new bright blue Mazda for our own use. And maybe one day
we will buy that Jaguar we hired when we returned to the UK for a
week?
My first trip to Thailand
My
first trip to Thailand was a long time ago. During my first job I
started day release classes to study physics and engineering. During
lunch I used to buy something to eat and sit in my car listening
to the radio. I am unsure now what prompted me but I decided that
I had never been on a 'proper' holiday and I had some money in the
bank so I should go somewhere. I got hold of some Kuoni travel magazines
and over the next few weeks narrowed it down to three possible locations;
the Seychelles, the Maldives and Thailand. But Thailand won out,
the photo of those two bikini clad Asian girls beckoned to me and
I booked my ticket. I was to spend one week in Bangkok and one week
in Pattaya. To date my furthest foray out into the world had been
Christmas in Malta with my parents. The week in Bangkok was relatively
uneventful (for Thailand). I was staying at the Ambassador hotel
in Bangkok: I got very sunburnt sitting by its pool, so badly I had
to spend the next day inside the hotel. I found I loved the food;
the country fascinated me. I saw the temples and had a body massage.
I did like this country! The second week in Pattaya was more of the
same, good food, swimming, and I discovered the bars. How enticing
they were. Naively I thought the girls that spoke to you were just
being friendly. I was to find out how friendly, and two (or maybe
three, I forget now) return trips were made to see one girl in particular.
Her name was Jumpa and she came from Kong Khen in the north East
of Thailand, and on one trip she took me home to meet her parents.
That was an experience, they lived in a wooden hut on stilts with
no running water, no-one spoke any English, and I was greeted (in
a friendly way) with the same fascination as Spock reserves for reptilian
aliens. The relationship slowly petered out, this was about 1982
I think, and communication was through letters, not mobile phones.
Regrets
I
rather like the apparent Thai attitude of moving on, you can't change
what is past: regret is a wasted emotion. Learn by it by all means
but then it is time to move on. Despite this ideal two things do nag
at the back of my mind:-
My first wife died last year of cancer aged 43. I
should have gone back to see her before she died (although there were
very complicated reasons why I did not which I may write about one
day). But I think I should have just gone.
When my father died my mother told me she had no reason
to live anymore. She had a heart disease and needed an operation and
she told the doctors she wouldn't have it. She died as a result a year
after my father. After she had died, I separated from my first wife,
and later met Ploy and moved to Singapore. I so want her to have met
Ploy. I should have tried harder to give her a reason to live. I still
have a poignant reminder of my mother's expectant death. She always
said when she died to look for a box in her apartment: in there were
detailed lists of what to do in the event of her death. I still have
them.
Becoming a Step-Dad
Tang Mo (Ploy's daughter) has now
been going to school in Singapore for over 2 months. With Ploy being
in Thailand most of this time it has just been the two of us. The reason
for her coming here is clear: Thai schools do not offer the best education
whereas schools in Singapore are amongst the best. Ploy has not been
close to her daughter, when her first husband re-married she was prohibited
access for a number of years and it is only recently, just after I
met her that she was allowed access again. However she wants her to
have the opportunity to go to university and to see other countries,
and her father agreed, so we found an intensive course in Singapore
which is designed to 'bridge the gap' between Thai and Singapore schools.
The course principally concentrates on English with a little bit of
maths and science: in November she will sit an exam which is the entrance
exam for Singapore government schools, and from then she will attend
a regular school, although some private tuition may still be necessary
to bring her up in other fields, such as history and also fill in some
remaining gaps on her English.
In
the two months she has been here she has been transformed: she is more
confident in herself, her English is astonishing, we are able to talk
at length on various subjects, yesterday it was poetry, when I also learnt
something about Thai poetry (Roi Glawng). And she helps me with my Thai
for which she needs the patience of a saint. When she stayed with her
father they had a maid, so she did not have to do anything around the
house, but she is learning to clean, to iron (I hate ironing so I am
pleased to have assistance in that area), to cook, and to eat because
she is trying new foods all the time (mostly western). She gets herself
up to go to school (I leave earlier for work) and she also gets home
before me: by the time I get home she has usually done her homework,
and we cook and eat something together, or go out and eat, and maybe
watch a movie or she will go and read in her room or e-mail her friends
in Thailand. She has not made any real friends here yet, at weekends
she stays with me, we shop for food or go swimming, but she seems happy
although I worry about it a little. It seems she was the same in Thailand,
and actually as an only child, I was much the same. I think when she
goes to the government school that will change. The biggest change is
in me, perhaps the responsibility is good for me. I can't just do what
I want when I want it, a luxury I have had for some time now. Although
Mo is very independent, she does seem to enjoy my company, especially
as she becomes confident in me, and I feel a sort of pleasurable duty
to have to come home promptly and spend time with her.
Mind you I don't think the school is
so fond of me: I was talking with Mo's teacher about the government exam
and if we might need any supplementary lessons. Of course I know Singapore
has embraced the Asian culture of parents expectations of their children
where 99.9% is a failure. The teacher did suggest more lessons and mentioned
a Chinese student that after being at school between 9 and 4, went home,
showered and ate, and then had another 3 hour lesson with another teacher,
after which he did his homework (usually at least 2 hours). The weekend
were supplemented similarly. "He got over 80% in the exam" she
beamed. "Why", I said, the pass mark is 40%. That extra 40%
could have been spent, swimming, visiting art galleries, going to concerts
and movies, getting a life, thinking". I was lucky I wasn't thrown
out of Singapore in hindsight.
My Own Business
I started my own company in 1984. It
had become clear to me there was an opportunity to sell products that
processed video images in real-time, and my previous companies had decided
not to explore that market when I suggested it to them. I don't know
why, but looking back,
such a big decision did not seem so big at the time. I had recently bought
a house, but the mortgage was not too large and I owned my car: my first
wife was working, it was not a large salary, but it would pay for the
food and the bills. I asked
the building society if I could withhold paying the mortgage for six
months whilst I got the company going and they agreed. I told my bank
and they were supportive (I will try not to start a rant about how banks
changed in the Thatcher era, from places that nutured, advised and encouraged
start-up businesses, to places that avoided 'risk' by refusing unsecured
loans to individuals yet were happy to give millions to corrupt governments
who allowed their people to starve). I already had some designs, and
I started to send out some press releases and build prototypes of my
ideas. I wrote for magazines; it gave some
income and was also very good publicity. And soon the telephone started
ringing. Then came the first order, from Nuclear Electric, to adapt one
of my prototypes for their own use, 130 pounds (Ching!). It soon became
my first real order for a product, I was on my way. My wife soon joined
the business, I taught her to assemble the products and she became the
best electronics technician I ever knew, although she never believed
it. Between the two of us we could have conquered the world. The orders
kept coming, the articles kept appearing. We seemed to have hit a rich
seam. we had ideas. Always ideas. We were going to do a digital effects
processor for home video cameras to sell to high street shops. We built
a protoype but it never got any further. We started recruiting, we moved
to real premises, but then it started to go wrong. The fault was with
me. My talent was design, and I also seemed to be able to talk to customers
well and, I think, was liked. Most of our customers were engineers, and
talking to someone who understood what they wanted was refreshing. But
I couldn't keep accepting orders, driving all over the country, from
Scotland to Wales, and also designing, without turning down orders; and
that I didn't want to do. But it is what I should have done. I liked
doing that job, the company was successful, we turned over 300,000 pounds
within 2.5 years. But I wanted to be an ICI or IBM. So I recruited, some
fairly average engineers, who couldn't do the design I did. So I ended
up taking care of them: I became a manager, and then we decided to employ
a salesman so I could stay and take care of them. Why couldn't I see
it then? But we never pulled ourselves around until right at the end,
when we let everyone go, went back to a one man show and tried to start
again. But we never recovered, and I went back into employment. I have
never enjoyed a job as much as when I was designing and prototyping until
midnight or beyond, or driving to Newcastle and back in one day to see
a customer, a 2000km round trip, who by the end of the demonstration
had brought in the entire development laboratory, such was the novelty
of the equipment. The sense of achievement of seeing your products in
hospitals, in prestigious companies, on the front of magazines. One day,
some eight years after we had started the company, I had a phone call
from a ex-customer. They wanted to buy another framestore. The same as
the one they already had which they had used, 24 hours a day, for 8 years
without ever having a problem with it. Within that company we were famous
and I sure the man was slightly in awe of us. Little did he know that
the bailiffs were but a few miles away. Ploy thinks I should start again
but I have never had the nerve, and anyway that particular opportunity
seems to have gone. But there are still the ideas. Maybe, just maybe?
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