Change can do funny things to your head!!

Bloody hell!! where did the days go?

Here I sit with a business that has changed hands and semi retirement looming. The approach of each day now gives me a small nudge. I need to begin to arrange the future rather than turning into a couch potato.

At this time I have managed to visit Belfast and pass on some of my collection to a fellow gatherer. I will be visiting a fair in Kent this coming weekend, I have bought a few oddities that are always a topic for conversation when displayed in the correct manner. Usually this entails placing a very big price tag on it !!

You would be amazed at how many strollers ask me "Why is that so expensive?" I then look a little baffled grab the price tag and say, "Oops!  too many zeros...." then strike up a bit of sales chat. Reel em in.

Here is a simple tip that I have seen work well. Obtain a tatty box, preferably cardboard and old. Fill it with some items that are either damaged, missing parts, fell out of the boot or have sat on the stall for eons. Throw in some old clothe things like socks, towels and maybe the odd boot. Place a big sign  on it that reads something like...."Everything £5.00" Then stand back and be amazed.

Some odd human conditioning kicks in. The thought that there could be something in the box that is worth more than a fiver gets the punters blood up. Woo!! they swarm around have a rummage and think they have found treasure. Even then they try to knock the price down. I have sold small bits of my collection that have sat around for years within a few minutes of the doors opening.

The other method I use is to visit a few charity shops and grab some hardbacks. The ones with lots of illustrations go down well, they can be on any subject but as I trade Militaria I aim for that subject matter. Do not arrange them neatly on a stand.  Simply scribble a price (In pencil, so you change it)  on the inside cover and throw them to the floor on an old table cloth. There is no greater pass time for the punter than to rummage in a squat position, the elder patrons tend not to spend too much time at ground level but once again you will be taken aback at how much you sell.

Of course this gets them chatting and as they stand there you can introduce them to the more exotic and expensive items on your table. You must never sit down, always look relaxed, try not to talk on the mobile, smile a lot, strike up a conversation when ever you can, try to keep people at your table with general chit chat and the odd offering of a biscuit or a free pen (They are cheap enough) and most important of all present your items in the best possible condition and light.

I am off now to have a few beers, tomorrow is Tuesday and I will be playing live at an open mic venue near Epping forest. Be safe and may your god go with you.

A new year.

It seems that time has pushed me along another rocky path. Work is very stressful and the writing could be on the wall for the business. Yet I remain hopeful.

A quick update then I will resume my story.

I am now getting free money from my old employer British Telecom.

I now get free prescriptions and I could opt for the free bus pass.....nah!!

I have continued song writing, caught some nice Carp, visited a few very nice fisheries, collected even more militaria and started stalling out out at a monthly fair in Kent.

The History Of Russian Tanks film is finished and we have 5000 copies for sale on Amazon USA. It will not be available in Europe until we check the copyrights. It is 2 hours and 22 minutes in length and took us 8 years to make. I am confident it will sell and we {The Producers} get some money from the project. The website is www.therussiantank.com.

Pop on and have a butchers!!

There is also a link to the You Tube video.

That's all folks, exit stage right and back soon for the next chapter.

Those pesky Time lords have been at it again!!

Blimey where do the days go?

Here we are rapidly exiting 2011 and my story has fouled on a debris encrusted sea bed.

I continue my journey across the ocean of life with some concerns for the global future. I do not allow these leaden thoughts to weigh me down and I maintain my positive outlook in all its glory.

Life is more difficult for the younger society and I feel it is they that will carry the burden for longer than in my youth.

I have been writing some new songs and I have been playing them live over the internet on "Camfrog" The Chatroom is called Midnight Musicians Club. Very apt considering that is when I usually strumm. My wife in not enamoured of my chosen timeslot but lucky enough there are a few solid walls between my entertaining room and the bedroom.

I have also stopped the trout fishing and started carp fishing instead. Bloody expensive I can assure everyone. However it is very rewrding and a massive chill out.

Be good and watch this space, I will not be a stranger.

Damn and blast the time lords!!!1

Well here I am again though this time I really do have to apologise for being away so long.

Life seems to do this to me of late. Each month dribbles into the next and before I know it the year has almost gone. This does not mean I am just vegging it. Oh no!! I have been busy keeping my income secure. It takes a lot of lateral thinking when the pounds are spent faster than earned.

It is not long before you see a problem looming and as I enjoy an element of the good life I had to take drastic action. This introduced some stress and I have not been myself for a while. The old noggin seems to be in a twirl. I have had major computer failure and comms have been giving be some jip. A testing period that is now behind me. As with all tides the ebbs and flows affect people in differing ways. In my case it spirited me to start writing my music again.

I will continue with the collector in the coming months, not having had time to relax and reflect on the past (wish I had kept a diary to be honest) I need to pencil some notes on the next few chapters. I can never see myself setting a dateline and I am amazed at the bloggers that post two or three times a week. Not to say that I could not do the same. All I would do is shorten each chapter but that would be boring.

I also wonder if any one actually reads this as I have no way of knowing apart from comments posted. I do not get any. I did at the start but then I suppose because of the lack of deadline and content my early readership faded. A reader of blogs need to be fed, I feel I did not have enough on my table.

Since December 2008 I have done the following. Cataloged a major part of my collection, started trout and freshwater fishing again, started to play at random open mic evenings, continued with my travels around the UK and Europe and bought another guitar.

Please continue to visit me here as my story will commence again soon.

The youth in me..........

Hello again dear reader.

As you have read so far my school days were a mixture of fun and aggro. Through all the years though, I managed to keep a smile upon my face. The next part of my story will be a series of snapshots dealing with my life out of school. The game really kicks off when I leave school and begin employment but that is for much later. We have my extra curricular activities to investigate first.

I have never been one to shy away from a new venture. In fact looking at my life I have been lucky in the manner in which I easily attain a level of competence that others may struggle with. My biggest problem is that I quickly lose interest when I feel that a current hobby is demanding more and more of an effort from me to progress to the next level. There is always something new to grab my attention and boy did I like to grab.

I joined the boy scouts. It was the next obvious step from cubs. Dib DOB dib DOB. I never understood the meaning of the odd language we used during ceremonies. Sitting round a campfire singing “Ging gang goolie……” and thinking it made sense. Very strange now I think about it.

Looking back it was a good time to be a boy scout as most of the people I knew were in the same troop and it was accepted that all good upstanding boys wanted to run around in shorts and play with their toggles. I have a few memories that I can share. The Arkala was a very large (rotund) man with more chins than I could wave a stick at. In his day job he was something in the city. What that something was I am unsure but it must have involved dressing up and cavorting with same gendered friends. He had a passion for the scouts and when I say passion I mean PASSION. At school we were taught basic sex education and out of school we learned that in the real adult world there was more than just heterosexuality to contend with. Ahh! The joys of innocence and its short lifespan.

I was never approached in any sexual manner by the leaders but as with any group of adolescent males some amongst us had a tendency to hang around with the elders more than I was comfortable with. It was during this period that I had my first ever break away from home without the family. Summer camp was fantastic for me. We went to a place called Buckmore Park. I now know that this park is just along the A2/M2 corridor though at the time it felt like I was off to Scotland or even France. There we all were in the coach singing scouty songs and comparing badges. This was going to be a big event. I think there were about 15 troops from all over London going on the Jamboree. Things I remember to this day are as follows and they are very vivid memories that even have a smell about them, if you can grasp that concept.

Large bell tents made from real old canvas, a central campfire area and the cooking area under cover. The first night in the sleeping bag and you find that you are not alone …….in the bag. There are things in there with you that were not present when you set out your sleep area. Creepy crawlies had been placed inside by some of your troop. Usually the ones that been on these ventures before. It took us hours to get to sleep and we were chastised for all the noise. Waking up very early and feeling like shit. Your eyes all gritty and lots of dead bugs at the bottom of your sleeping bag that had to be emptied out. The very cold water we washed in, the smell of the breakfast being cooked. The billowing smoke from all the campfires and the realisation that even in summer the early mornings can be damp and cold when your wearing shorts and someone has stolen your woggle.

The muster and details of the first day’s activities. We were going on a jaunt through the woods following a trail that had been made earlier. Bits of red cloth had been tied to trees and branches. We were split into groups and a timed race was on. The winners would get some chocolate. All good fun until one of the troops decides to remove some of the red markers. Lucky for us though it was our troop leader who had laid out the trail so we were not fooled. The games people play.
Evening around the campfire with a guitar being strummed and songs sung. Sticks with bread on them being toasted in the flames. Looking around and seeing all your mates smiling and laughing in the red glow. Being bitten by all the bugs that didn’t live in the city and scared witless by the sounds from the woods. The second night under the stars was the best. Very few bugs in my sleeping bag and we all crashed out because we so bloody knackered.

Next day was a sports day all I remember was one tall bloke from another troop landed heavily in the grass. He caught his knee on an old animal bone. He was screaming right near me and when I looked at his leg I could see the flap of bloodless skin that he was trying to push back into place. It made me feel sick. He went to hospital then got sent home. That evening a group of girl guides joined in. They were camped not far from us. So we had an even better sing song. Some of the girls were a lot older than me and cheeky with it. I was pulled into one of their tents by about 4 of them and all I can recollect was being straddled by one girl who was twice my size whilst things were shoved up my shorts. I was rescued by a few of the other lads who released the tension on the tent so it sagged and was in danger of collapse.

There was much of the same for the next few days. We did some field craft and learned a little about orienteering and how to read maps. We were shown how to make an oven from an old biscuit tin and mud. I bought my mother a small ornament made from cork. It was a scene of some deer standing near some pine trees on a small copse. My father still has it in a display cabinet. When I got home I remember my younger brother’s beaming smile and waved spoon as he was sitting in the high chair in the kitchen eating his dinner. What was on his spoon and around his mouth reminded me of something I had left at the Jamboree........in a pit!!

As I said this was my first trip away and it was the middle 60's. How times change. When I took my family to Florida and Disney world my daughter was 4 and my son aged 2.

Well it is late and I have an 18 year old out at a party and any time now I will be called upon to go and collect her and a few of her merry friends. Dad’s taxi service never rests. Neither does the job of collecting.

Next installment soon and I promise not such a long gap as the last.

Time to play catch up.

I must apologise, dear reader, for not having posted in a very long time. Life has a tendency to meander and tangle like the roots of a great tree and the course of a stream.

I have been busy of late with living, work and family affairs. Now it is my intention to continue our journey from the age of 12. You have read of the schooldays with interest I hope. So get ready to read about the events that coloured my life during weekends and evenings. I need to precis many things or this will soon become a chore to read. I can be over descriptive and I would not want to take your imagination for granted. I think it is fun to simplify some events and allow you, the reader, to add your own imagery.

I will hasten away now to Microsoft Word and prepare the next chapter in the life of a Collector. It will posted here soon. Though I do have a very busy July ahead. I am training some new skills, attending some seminars, visiting a military show and having a well deserved holiday. A new vehicle is on the cards, a new employee and a new responsibility.

Time for tiffin.

Loopback time.

As I said this part of my story was going to concentrate on my schooldays. I would then leap back to the age of twelve and comment on my non-school activities. I stayed at school until the age of 17, though I was in the sixth form. The reason for this was that my birthday fell in November. I was always one of the eldest in any class. I had taken my mock exams but was then ill with a chest infection for a few of them. I used to get chest infections about three times a year and they would kick me into touch for over 2 weeks at a time. I had many sick periods; this did not mean I was unhealthy. Looking back from today’s perspective I think I had a mild form of asthma. I have researched and there are certain families of fungal spore that become aggressive at peak times throughout the year. I feel now that I was sensitive to one of these strains. Since giving up smoking 14 years ago my health has improved and now I suffer less with chest problems.

I had little idea of what I wanted to do when I left school; I was good at many subjects but never brilliant. College and university were not an option. As far as my father was concerned I would stay on until 18 then get a job. This will all become apparent later. For now feel safe in the knowledge that I left school and had a job lined up for November. A job I would stay with for nearly 25 years. It was one of the best you could ever wish for if you share my outlook and attitude towards life. It will be a fantastic journey I can assure you.

Last day at school was nasty. Lots of sad farewells, hand shaking and threats. Many promises of keeping in touch and meeting up in years to come…...NOT!! The people that had bullied me in my early years had stopped as I grew to over six foot three inches in height. But my memory is like that of an Elephant. Being from a Sicilian household my father had taught me some very simple rules about life. One of the most important, which I adhere to even now, was that “Revenge is best served as a cold dish”

So there I was having my blazer ripped to shreds along with many other boys. There were lots of fake bundles taking place and no teachers in sight. This was the last time I would see many of these young men. I had chosen two targets in advance. Blonde, neat and pretty looking. They had been my main antagonists during my first few years in the school. My plan was a simple one. I walked up to each in turn and as their smiling faces turned towards my tap on their shoulder they met 182lbs of my fist in their face. They both fell like sacks of potatoes and I simply walked off into the crowd. To this day I bet they never knew who laid them out, but I did and it felt good. Please do not judge me as being aggressive. I have never been consistently aggressive in my life and neither do I have hate inside me. These incidents were the venting of poison and they helped firm up a foundation beneath one span of my life. My fist hurt for days though and I wonder if I broke a nose or loosened some teeth?

The end of your schooling is traumatic on the one hand and yet an exciting event on the other. It’s like turning to chapter 18 in the book of your life to find that from that point onwards the author has changed. In many ways another person will now be writing the book. Looking at the future ‘you’ from a different perspective. Writing with a very unsteady hand at first but just like the previous author he will gain confidence once he knows more about you. You now continue your journey on a deep and foggy ocean because it is springtime again. You have no idea where this ship that you sail will take you because you are not steering it yet. You have just come on board, packed away the baggage of your life so far and have concerns about the voyage ahead. Though no one has told you this. Not that you would have listened in any case. In your head you see adventure, exploration and freedom. The reality is you are entering the unknown. You do not know the rules and you feel immortal.

All this will be for much later in The Collector’s gathered pictures. We need to flick the book back a few chapters and read the parts written in Lemon juice. You will need a hot iron though!