The following WILL be decanted down into brief bullet points but, before that process can happen, I have to write a BURST of info, (below), that will be the source of some later editing. THUS, although the following is expansive, a later edit should decant my words into … err … less words!
So … what follows is the content to be (later) distilled down.
I don’t think I’ve ever even thought about describing my whole life in a succinct A4 sized (equivilent) piece of written prose which, to me, represents about 2500 characters or approxiamately 500 words but, hey, that’s the absolute joy (or challenge) of working on a project like beachthorncombe.co.uk
I guess, if we use the idiom of “putting one’s feet in the fire“, I’ll not only be evaluating my own time on this spinning rock but, in the context of addressing friends I grew up with, I’ll be presenting and comparing myself to my peers in some fascinating experiment by wondering how I may have managed my life when compared to the lives of friends I would have launched off the starting blocks with as we all began our own exploration of the world and ourselves as young people.
And how should any of us even measure such a thing anyway? I mean, should a life be judged on particular factors? And what would those factors represent?
Would it involve some cynical or societal representation of material net worth? Would it involve some personal heroic journey? Would it involve some moral acknowledement of simply having been a good person? Would it be represented by some expression of admiration or celebrity? Or some spiritual or inner resolve?
Truth is, whatever the reason, such an answer lies way beyond our own comprehension of what represents some meaningful life because, ultimately, such a judgement or assessment lies not with ourselves but with others; and it always makes me smile to appreciate that, no matter who we are, we get summed up in just a sentence or two the moment our friends or loved ones celebrate our own lives the moment we die and cease to be in it.
Me? With caveats, I think I’ve lived an extra-ordinary life and, sure, when I ponder the existence, output or demeanor of those around me today, I tend to come to the conclusion that the exuberant, passionate, extrovert energy of the person that my childhood friends of 50 years ago saw in me and took for granted, is STILL the essence of me all these many decades later!
I never did really grow up and, even as an old man now, I believe that I’ve maintained that same childhood awe and wonder for the world that I always had back then.
Heck. This very website is a kind of testimony to that fact! š
So … what did I do with my life?
Well … After school and after the
Here is my life. All that I found on Earth. All that I did. All that I am. All that I know and feel.
Aside from folk I grew up with, most of you, online and off, probably associate me more with Bridport, Dorset than Yeovil, and, sure, although a former Somerset boy, I regard my adopted and beloved West Dorset as my true bonafide real home but, like so many serendipitous events in my life, there is a story behind that fortunate fact and this section, Dorset Anecdotes, will represent the font and source of most of the adventures and experiences that will bookend most of my own life.
Spring 1977.
“I came down from Yeovil to Bridport to paint a door … and never went home!”
I was a 20 year old Yeovil skinhead fresh out of Haslar detention centre , Gosport.
My Uncle Norman, a successful Somerset businessman with properties across Somerset and Dorset, needed a favour.
He was pursuing the eviction of an errant tenant at a property in Dreadnaught lane, Bridport, and needed a bit of personal protection to ensure the operation was completed without drama so I’d been seconded to accompany him to Bridport to offer a bit of security, pursue a little maintenance on the property and prep the dwelling for some potential new tenant.
Like so many Bridport dwellings, the place was quite quirky and quaint; a 17th century building comprising an industrial ‘L’ shaped ground floor plus a 1st floor comprising a domestic flat plus adjacent storage space.
The ground floor, set up as a workshop, was spacious and included an impressive and huge plate glass window acting as a vast glazed shop style window with a doorway to its left side.