Simmy

Welcome

Online friends who have spent nearly 25 years communicating with Beach, (my online persona), will be able to explore my real life world and, likewise, real life friends will be able to view a side of me they may not have encountered before.

In either scenario, you may use the MENU to navigate and explore.

Visit the MENU page to continue or navigate these sample links. (Below)

Bridport family

Life paths

Career and business

I’d claim that I’ve had a fascinating life and a very interesting and varied career and, importantly, I’d say that starting out as an apprentice electrician served me well because an electrician tends to have to adopt a whole range of skillsets associated with other construction related trades. (Carpenter, plumber, painter, decorator, tiler, mason, engineer, etc)

My own strengths, skills and disciplines mated well with such demands and later in my career, an ability to supervise and govern those around me delivered additional personal qualities that would become vital for the ambitious and risky personal business goals I would one day set myself.

Apprentice electrician

Back in the 1970’s, education wise, a pupil’s future career prospects was treated almost as an afterthought and involved little more than a couple of lessons in the library just weeks before all of us left school for good.

Enrolling as an apprentice electrician was never my own choice but the choice of my disciplined, controlling father. Nevertheless, I did enjoy the work. If anyone had ever had asked me to choose my own vocation, back then, I would have picked oceanographer.

Self employed electrician

Self employed construction worker

Concrete finisher

Leading hand / General Foreman

Finishing Foreman / Site Agent

Local Authority / Work’s Inspector

Inventor / Euntrepeneur

Introduction

Although I lead a simple, carefree and uncomplicated life here in my glorious West Dorset world, I hold a natural innate desire to deconstruct, examine, explore and reassemble all aspects of this thing we call life!

I like all types of conversation and can sometimes get quite wide eyed and immersed when holding court or encouraging a conversation to shift upwards to a more exotic or left-field nature.

I’m fascinated with the origins of life on Earth, the prehistory of humanity, ancient philosophy, pioneers of history, the concept of time, quantum theory, the prospect of self aware robots, the development of machine intelligence or anything to do with the eventual colonizing of Mars, which I have a personal, commercial interest in seeing materialise.

Hobbies and passions

Goodness. Where to begin?

It is no secret that I’ve always maintained a formidable and infectious enthusiasm for life and, over my own 60+ years, have absorbed information like a sponge, often to a point of insomnia whereby I simply can’t sleep for excitement in contemplating the blissful idea of waking up a following morning to pursue some project or vision.

I regard my own mind as being my greatest asset and resource and, in giving myself just the barest outline or scrap of an idea, can manifest a concept with a beginning, a middle and an end in the blink of an eye!

The best and most fitting analogy I can present in explaining this extra-ordinary gift is to compare such a feeling to something everyone might relate to and, I’d claim, such a scenario is just like the way all of us feel when we meet some potential new love interest where we find ourselves entirely consumed with an idea of wishing to get to know someone romantically at some deeper, more intimate level.

The rush of anticipation; the stimulation of endorphins sparking and earthing across the neurones of the mind at the prospect of manifesting a desired or favourable outcome as a pleasurable act of bringing something into being.

Sure. Nature delivers such a feeling of infatuation when it comes to romance, to bond such a pairing to give it every opportunity to be successful whereas in my case, it appears that I can conjure up such an enthusiasm and passion … well … for anything … for anything at all that piques my interest.

I love ancient and local history, photography, cycling, walking and angling and I live just minutes away from one of the most spectacular places on earth. The fabulous West Dorset Jurassic Coast, a UNESCO World Heritage site spanning 95 miles of breathtaking prehistoric coastline.

Set against the fantastic ocean backdrop of Lyme Bay, my particular cliffs lie like scattered books, their ancient pages either layered or fanned open revealing strata, rocks and huge fossils recording 185 million years of Earth’s history, some of the best parts of which lie just a short cycle ride across the fields from Beach cottage.

When I was 8 years old, my parents drove me from Yeovil to Crewkerne, to a petrol station just north of the town square.

I was then guided to a bungalow adjacent and behind the stablishment where I was introduced to a couple who had just lost their son; a little boy the same age as myself.

I didn’t understand or comprehend the true nature of that couple’s bereavement at the time but I did understand that they had something precious they wished to bestow upon me.

It was a wonderous collection of the little boy’s personal fishing tackle including a tackle box crammed with shiney lures, fishing hooks, weights, floats and other accessories along with a selection of spinning and course fishing reels plus a a split cane freshwater fishing rod, a fibreglass spinning rod and a fly fishing rod and reel.

The experience moved me and I understood the nature of the gift.

And in being given such a gift in such a poignant fashion, (rather than just buying or collecting such items from a tackle shop or store), I was introduced to the hobby in a manner and fashion that imbued great meaning for me.

That little boy would never again experience the wonder and anticipation of setting out on some great fishing adventure BUT, thanks to him, I would be introduced to such adventures.

If the mackerel are shoaling or if I need to earth myself with raw nature and the spectacular coastline just 10 minutes from Beach Cottage, I head to the shore or cliffs to remind myself just how wonderful it is to be alive. Otherwise, I’m based at my West Country home offering PC servicing and repair and computer, smartphone or tablet tuition.

As you’ll learn, the creative process of working with 3D media of all disciplines has inspired me for more than 30 years but, wow, I was not prepared for the experience and joy of exploring the world of 3D printing.

Sure. As a creative soul and inventor, (with international awards and accolades to my name), I’m used to bringing cerebral ideas and imagined concepts or designs screaming and kicking into existence BUT to be able to design something in glorious 3D on my computer and then transform such a digital file into a solid, real world real life object right before my own eyes is something more akin to a technology like the Replicator we might see on Star Trek. 

And the actual process of watching a 3D printer doing its work?

Well … (and I always describe things this way), I’d describe the visual miracle of watching a 3D printer doing its thing as being akin to unexpectedly spying some magnificent deer suddenly appearing in the clearing of an, otherwise, dense forest.

I mean; the experience of witnessing eiter miracle, (the fruits of a 3D printer or some magnificent stag appearing), is a feeling of awe and a feeling of witnessing something extra-ordinary; something quite breathtaking and profound.

From that idyllic and peaceful location, with only the company of an occasional circling bird of prey for company, I spin for bass or mackerel or take photographs or fly my drones, experiencing a wonderful sublime detachment and disassociation from all of humanity and the frantic fuss of 21st century life.

And if I’m not on the beach, you’ll, likely, find me exploring any number of ancient Dorset hillforts or plucking 2000 year old Roman coins from the rich dark mineralised soil of an abandoned Anglo-Romano villa.

An extension of my existing fascination for everything 3D related, 3D photography and video production is a medium that truly reflects the world every one of us experiences everyday; with the added benefit of allowing each one of us to finally enable another person to see life as if through our own eyes.

I have an, as yet, unfinished goal of documenting an amazing experience I have witnessed each time I freewheel down from the headland that is Thorncombe Beacon as I make my way “back to Bridport and civilisation”, rolling and rolling, mostly without pedalling, all the way from the top of the windswept Beacon, down through Doghouse lane, along Broad Lane and then down Brewery Hill to Palmer’s waterwheel.

The fact that I can arrive back in Bridport having, only minutes earlier, set off from one of the most desolate and off grid locations for 20 miles around truly tickles me and I hope, one day, I’ll record the event in 3D so that others can finally share the moment with me.

My English teacher, Dave Peters, addressing me as a 14 year old boy, once said, “Goodland, you could write about the inside of a ping pong ball and still make it interesting” which I, obviously, took as a fabulous compliment.

Seriously? Mr Peter’s introduced me to the writings of Ray Bradbury and, from that day till now, I carry and hold Bradbury as my writing role model.

Bradbury writes like a painter; throwing every hue and colour into the fabric of a prose that, in my opinion, few other writers can ever match.

Although, I confess, I’ve spent a lifetime happy, joyfully, blissfully attempting to emulate just a fraction of that great man’s writing style and verve.

Drones were always amazing for aerial photography but I got an extra surprise when I upgraded from an, already, seriously decent DJI Phantom 3 Advanced to a DJI Mini 3 Pro because it also delivers full 360 degree 3D photographic and video content AND is fully programmable, enabling me to create automated flight plans here at Beach cottage prior to releasing it into the wild to fly and deliver those flights entirely autonomously.

Imagine …

Your partner, (in my case, Jackie), encourages you to take up a new hobby.

And then a friend says, “Hey. I think there is an old Roman villa just outside town that you should investigate.”

Imagine then taking a couple of years swotting up on local history at Bridport library, (no internet back in those days), and finally establishing the exact co-ordinates of the ancient settlement and then gaining permission to detect the location.

Well. That’s what happened to me.

And within 20 minutes of arriving at the location, a windswept, rarely visited promontory overlooking the stunning vista of Lyme Bay, I register a “beep” on the machine and, seconds later, am rubbing the rich dark soil from the face of a small ancient coin intriguingly revealing the crystal clear bust of a Roman emperor.

A coin nobody has set their eyes on in nearly 2000 years.

A coin produced at a time when Jesus may well have still been alive!

–

And in that moment, the whole comprehension of what I knew about my world changed … because … here was a face looking up at me …

And it was saying … “You know what you have to do now, Chris? You have to find out exactly who I was and in doing so, you have to rewrite your whole concept of time and space in order to put me into some kind of historical context.”

And that experience … that simple act of finding a Roman coin up there on the ridgeway overlooking my little market town set me off on a historical journey that took me exploring and researching back in time, first exploring our ancient human heritage, (of the last 6 million years), later exploring the history and birth of our Solar System (4.5 billion years ago), and, eventually, leading me back to before the Big Bang and birth of the universe itself. (14.8 billiion years ago).

Passage

Situated just off the main thoroughfare of the northern end of Bridport’s famous South street market, Beach cottage lies hidden at the end of a well worn 16th century ancient passageway that regularly bewitches and halts people in their tracks.

It is common, sometimes several times a day, for folk to just stop and gaze down the alley and comment on its unique demeanour as they view the juxtoposition of the dark passage revealing the bright and colourful explosion of flowers I’ve, purposely, presented in hanging baskets at its far end.

And beyond the pastel colours of said hanging baskets, an inquisitive observer is then seduced and drawn in by the vision and promise of the 150ft 1940’s style garden that lies beyond.

Personal Info

It is 1953 and, onboard a speeding steam train heading south, a little boy, aged 5, and little girl, aged 7, watch an English countryside race past the window while, opposite, the formidable monochrome figure of a Catholic nun sternly pins the children to their seats with her gaze.

Abandoned by their mother, these children had spent years in a Scottish children’s home but now, partly due to an accident, (or some questionable act of  serendipity), they were heading to England to be reunited with her.

This fact is not, and would never represent, some fairy tale, happy ending for the children but it would create the circumstances that would lead to my own conception and birth.

It is difficult, perhaps impossible, to decipher the true psychological character of their mother, Kathleen McCartney, at the time these events were unfolding but I do know that the prior act of depositing her children in a Catholic orphanage several years earlier, would not have played heavily upon the woman’s conscience.

She was planning to marry an RAF airman she had met at a dance and, yes, one day he would become my father but, before then, she had a problem because, in order to gain approval for the marriage from the RAF man’s own mother, she would be forced to reclaim the orphans back into her life.

And that is what happened … and that was why this story opens with a train speeding south from Scotland.

Three years later, Kathleen McCartney, not a maternal woman, would give birth to a baby boy.

His name would be Christopher.

My first conscious memory was of being a toddler wheeled in my pushchair at breakneck speed along the road of the kerb lined grass circle in front of our house.

With me terrified and screaming, my brother John would holler for me to stop crying before even considering slowing down.

“Stop crying and I’ll stop pushing”, he would shout but even when I did so, I faced an impossible ultimatum.

“Cheer up now”, he would threaten, “or I’ll use the rings!”

John would then pretend to disengage the rings of my pushchair, an act that, I feared, would cause the pushchair to fold up on itself, gobbling me up in the process.

So. My first ever memory of being sentient and conscious of living in this world was a disturbing and frightening memory. A memory of being scared, bullied and traumatised with the threat of coming to some kind of mortal harm no matter whether I screamed out for mercy or whether I kept silent in the hope that the nightmare would stop.

40 children are bunched together, standing on a stage. Though not a Catholic school, a group of visiting nuns dressed in long flowing black and white garb, have been addressing us as a part of morning assembly but now, with apparent ceremony, we children are being prompted and encouraged to prepare ourselves for animation. Being instructed to await a command, we witness a nun throwing handfuls of wrapped sweets across the expansive wooden floor of the hall and then, with the prompt of a teacher clapping her hands, 39 children excitedly jump down to the floor and scramble to compete, argue and fight over possession of the array of colourful treats laid out before them. However, one child remains on the stage, unimpressed and unwilling to demean himself by fighting over confectionary. There was no way I intended to engage in such a humiliating spectacle. I recall such trite little instances of my childhood, not to indicate that I might have been some precocious child but because now, as an adult writing these words, I am revisiting myself as a little boy, attempting to rediscover who I really am to see if I can pin down reasons why I evolved into the man I evenytually became. Suffice to say though. Even at an early age, I’d already worked out that it would take a lot more than a few sweets to impress or garner my attention.

40 children are bunched together, standing on a stage.

Though not a Catholic school, a group of visiting nuns dressed in long flowing black and white garb, have been addressing us as a part of morning assembly but now, with apparent ceremony, we children are being prompted and encouraged to prepare ourselves for animation.

Being instructed to await a command, we witness a nun throwing handfuls of wrapped sweets across the expansive wooden floor of the hall and then, with the prompt of a teacher clapping her hands, 39 children excitedly jump down to the floor and scramble to compete, argue and fight over possession of the array of colourful treats laid out before them.

However, one child remains on the stage, unimpressed and unwilling to demean himself by fighting over confectionary. There was no way I intended to engage in such a humiliating spectacle.

I recall such trite little instances of my childhood, not to indicate that I might have been some precocious child but because now, as an adult writing these words, I am revisiting myself as a little boy, attempting to rediscover who I really am to see if I can pin down reasons why I evolved into the man I evenytually became.

Suffice to say though. Even at an early age, I’d already worked out that it would take a lot more than a few sweets to impress or garner my attention.

Today they call it child abuse

My earliest family memories were of being attacked and defending myself from my father delivering me beatings at my mother’s command; something John, Cathy and I all endured in one form or another.

I recall conflict, constant rowing and unhappiness in the family home and by the age of four or five, I felt genuinely isolated and unloved.

Nevertheless, as a kind of emergent emotional compensation, I recall I developed a level of empathy for the plight of others and, even at an early age, was always able to look at life through the eyes of those around me.

This aspect was probably attributed to the helplessness of the traumatic surroundings I grew up in. It led to me feeling a need to radiate my own character out to those I recognised as needing some form of comfort or help too.

That emotional feedback would one day go on to form the bedrock of my own philosophy for living to become an integral and important foundation for my own moral compass and value systems to be anchored to.

My bedroom was a refuse tip, never tidied unless done so by my Nan whom I idolised. My underclothes or shorts filthy, rarely changed by my mother, my clothes too large, second hand or dirty.

I used to discard my own underwear and throw them into bushes rather than continue wearing them and can still recall the smell of ammonia the garments gave off.

My professional father, my immaculately dressed mother – why did they not notice or take care of their little boy?

The day I was expected to start infant school, my mother stayed sleeping in her bed and did not participate in my big day. Brother John walked me the mile across town to our grandmothers and Nan took me in to Westfield Junior School.

Minutes after she left me safely with the teachers in the playground, I absconded, following Nan’s trail back to her house at 45 Westfield Crescent.

She gently encouraged me to return.

On that first day, walking up to a teacher in a locker room, I said “Miss. If you want anything, my name is Christopher Alan Goodland”.

The teacher smiled, knelt down  and tied my loose shoe laces. Her name was Mrs Sandy and we, instantly, became friends.

Born out of pity, concern or some maternal instinct, I think Mrs Sandy instantly knew I was a child from a dysfunctional family.

I appreciated her gentle caring demeanor and, occasionally, on visits from Yeovil to West Bay over the years, I also saw Mrs Sandy at the same caravan site that Nan’s caravan was parked on. (Now known as Parkdean caravan site)

Like my Nan, Mrs Sandy always made me feel special.  

Anyway, at infant’s school, I certainly recalled being a happy and intelligent little boy. Above average in most subjects, I was described in my reports as having a great imagination, an active mind and a friendly and helpful disposition although, even back then and throughout most of my early schooling, my excitable, “nervous energy” was always described as something that I would do well to temper and dial down a bit!

But over 60 years later, in writing this, I realise that one particular early memory shines a light on an aspect of me that raises all sorts of questions about my early mental makeup and approach to life.

I had joined in a schoolroom task to design and paint a poster. We were invited to design adverts of the kind we might see on billboards or on TV.

ALL of the other children designed posters broadcasting the benefits of a particular brand of washing up liquid or soap powder. I did not pursue such a theme. Instead, my posters proclaimed “Eat Food!”, “Sit on Chairs”, “Breath Air!” and were accompanied by suitable pictures.

But why was a little 5 year old boy producing such messages? What was going through his mind? What caused him to advertise what could easily be described as “the obvious”

I do not recall the answer I gave then – but I do understand now.

I was somehow aware of the deceit and insincerity of advertising and marketing. Yes, I was stating the obvious but I must have been making the point that adverts were “lies” designed to sway and entice us into buying particular brands.

My advertising campaign was not so shallow. I was saying, “Well, we do need to eat, we do need to rest and we do need to survive”.

Remember. I was 5 and at infants school!

I wonder why and what  contributed to me adopting such a left-field outlook upon the world?

What I do know was that, even at such a very young age, I had developed a very strong sense of self consciousness; ie, my own self worth, my own self awareness along with a very strong sense of self discipline as related in this final little anecdote of the same time period.

I am in an amusement arcade at West bay coastal resort and have been adopted by two new friends. (Policeman’s children).

A fruit machine has inadvertently spewed out whole handfuls of pennies; a whole lot of cash to children in the early 60’s.

I watch my two new friends scooping up the pennies, filling their pockets but stand motionless, unable and unwilling to join in the “crime” despite the arcade being empty with no sign of the owners.

I couldn’t and wouldn’t steal the coins even though they were there for the taking.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

UNEDITED TEXT (Below)

I’ve dumped the following text with an intention of polishing it and adding graphics in due course so if you must read it, please appreciate it is, fundamentally, not ready for publication and, therefore, a bit raw and rough.

In the family itself, I hold a memory of growing up neglected and unloved – Overlooked. A lonely little boy. Consequently, I felt different and comparing my life and surroundings with others, I could confirm that fact.

My own young friends were never allowed into my home, toys were limited or second hand and money was short.

Nan and Nan`s house always felt a sanctuary, a place to soak up love, affection and life. Nan would make it right. Nan was the font of love with which I, as a little boy I quenched my starved thirst.

Nan was Co Op lemon cordial, home baked fruit and rock cakes, brittle, oven tanned crunchy bread, strawberries and cream, meals at ornately decorated tables, tick tocking cookoo clocks, bakelite radios and The World At One.

Pop, a tall silver haired man with the most smiling eyes imaginable, was Nan’s loyal husband, a reliable and entirely timeless figure. Pop was a seamless extension of Nan and of course, as a little boy, he would have appeared nothing less.

Nan said I was exactly like Pop. I had the same build, the same features, the same look. I was just smaller!

Nan and Pop. ……….My Nan and Pop.

(Even now, the energy of their love remains with me and I with it).

The bedrock of my compassion, my comprehension of love and one of the several essential pillars of my character are based on the mere presence of those two special, precious people. …..and Nan, as the hub of the Goodland family was the star we all orbited around.

By the time I started at junior school, I was already wriggling from any close contact with my mother. It was far too late. If my mother put her arms around me, I would tense up, freeze, as if embraced by some cold, scaly lizard.

Bizarrely, at 8 years old, before junior school, I used to apply my fathers lavender aftershave to my face. I also wore three or four layers of clothing. Maybe 2 or 3 little T shirts – one upon the other. For some reason, I felt I needed to show off my layers of clothing. Look, here’s one – and here’s another.

On my first day at junior school, my mother did walk me there. Dressed in brown, elasticated bottoms more like tights or the apparel that a Robin Hood pantomime character might wear, I was immediately derided by my peers. A lad called my clothing amusing. Laughing, he encouraged others to ridicule me.

I silenced him with a vicious slap, a slap my father would have been proud of. Nobody laughed at me after that.

I related my day to my mother when I came home from school and my mother acquired some second hand Khaki shorts for the next day. They were enormous. I was still able to wear them years later as a teenager – but they were better than slacks.

As I got older, I became the whipping boy for my parents frustrations. I remember being beaten for things I knew little or nothing about.

A box of washing powder knocked onto the floor by wind blown kitchen curtains led to a hiding. A loose glass display shelf falling on its own resulted in a further hiding. Anything, it seemed brought my Mother and Fathers wrath upon me.

Witnessing my mother trying to leap out of my fathers speeding car during a row (outside Alf’s Fish & Chip shop, Chickerell), did little to settle me and neither did a further act of self preservation performed by my father.

Leaving a beach, my father had clambered up a fairly high wall. Turning to me, he had put out his hand to pull me up. I had grasped my fathers strong hand expecting to be lifted up the wall.

My father overbalanced and to save himself toppling over, he let go of me. He regained his balance while I plummeted several feet onto the beach, landing spreadeagle, face down on the sand.

1966

As a family, we visited Stourhead gardens and Longleat game reserve, landmarks that represented few memories of worth.

Leading into my early teens, I did enjoyed regular fishing trips with Dad but as the years rolled by, a newfound bond and fondness for my father was poisoned by my mother. She would tell me of the things she hated about “him” and by my 12th birthday, I had been told that relations with Dad was like “legalized rape”. I was given graphic accounts of their love making and told that my mothers legs would be “splayed like a chicken”.

I could not comprehend the actual act being described to me but the overall charge was that my father was, apparently, abusing my mother in some fashion.

As I grew a little older and wiser, I discovered that these statements conflicted with events in several ways. Rooting through drawers and dressing tables out of boredom, I discovered used contraceptives wrapped in tissue and the existence of sexual guide books like The Kama Sutra and The Perfumed Garden. I would also occasionally hear noises or discussions that indicated an active relationship was ongoing.

I read both books though.

1970

However, by the age of 14, I was brainwashed – converted and able to scheme with my mother when she made her mind up to finally leave Dad. I would not have appreciated or understood that my father probably loved my mother and was suffering his own version of hell as a result of the way she was constantly goading him with personal and cutting comments and actions.

On returning from enjoyable sea angling trips with Dad, there would always be the ritual of my mother claiming some imaginary man had just left the front door as we entered the back door.

As a child, the banter would have appeared innocent to me. As an adult, I now understand the tension and underlying menace and inference of the comments.

1971

When she actually left home, I helped my mother carry her belongings into town, dog in tow, in utter darkness. It was during the power cuts of the Heath government of 1971. No street lights, no lighting at all.

An allie of my mother, I would have no bad word said about her. Of course she should go. Life had become intolerable……..She had told me so. I was 14. Of course I understood all about such things.

And so it was for several grim years. Utterly brainwashed by my mother, I did my best to make my fathers life hell. And Why shouldn’t I?

Periodically, packages and presents would arrive from the Isle of Wight, where my mother had moved. A state of the art camera. A top of the range fishing rod.

When I eventually visited her, I learned she had moved in with an Anglo – Indian man called Frank. He was a gentle and genuine man.

I can sum up the depths to which my mother tried to hurt my father by an event that developed by my 15th birthday.

Following a visit to the I.O.W, I was told that my mother was entitled to half of the house that my parents had bought in Yeovil. She suggested that she would sign over her half of the house to me, if I would change my surname from Goodland to K**wood.

I was expected to give the matter some thought but was naturally confused at being asked to do such a thing. A further carrot was dangled before me. If I changed my name, Frank would be able to secure me a lucrative job in Saudi Arabia where he worked. I was reminded that the salary was likely to be 10 times what I could expect here in the UK.

I found the situation bizarre and was easily able to reject the proposal. Nevertheless, it demonstrates the crossfire I was being subjected to.

By this time, I was beginning to head off the rails with some considerable momentum. The atmosphere in my home was becoming intolerable and the addition of the hormones raging inside my pubescent body were taking their toll.

The effect of being a child from “a broken home” became a license to do exactly as I pleased and the bush-fire developing inside me spread outwards into my world.

My father became the focus of my rage and I found it easy to trawl up indignation and memories from my past as a reason to make him pay for every sin he had ever delivered upon me.

While it was true that all children passing through puberty are capable of making their own stand, I began to do so vigorously, with a vengeance.

Aside from the aggression I showed, I developed a sharp intellect that could run rings around my father, a man usually more than capable of dealing with such situations.

An example was the “double standards” exhibited by most adults, something that all smart Alec teenagers seem to have a natural ability to play upon.

My father used to scold me for swearing although in lighter moments, he himself used to occasionally swear.

My solution to my father’s criticism was to keep a secret diary, noting times, places and dates on the occasions my father let out a curse.

After some time, I had a portfolio of times when Dad had indeed swore himself.

Of course the time inevitably came when I was reprimanded for swearing and with delight, I brought out my diary and reminded my father that he was not in a position to dictate to me the morals of swearing at all.

Faced with such a situation, my triumph was complete with an admission from my father that my young mind was too much of a match for him and that he was growing weary of sparring with me.

The admission fanned the flames and I went on to toy with my father in other, equally juvenile ways.

When, after some considerable time, he actually brought a new lady home, I was invited to show off our new stereo. Naturally, I put on a mono record that would do nothing to exhibit the merits of the system.

These are almost innocent examples of the situation at home but they conceal a genuine, underlying current of resentment and indignation that was all too real for too long in my young life.

I was becoming detached from any type of discipline and beginning to exhibit a streak of self-destruction in my life.

1972

At 16, with my home and family life in ruins, I felt as if it mattered little what eventually happened to me.

Joining a company as an apprentice electrician halted the attitude briefly but very soon, the situation returned and I started to turn into my father’s worst nightmare.

I joined a local gang, settled on the edge of active crime and took a great interest in football and the skinhead culture that was growing up around it.

Treating my new friends as a replacement family, I put all my efforts into becoming an active and worthy lieutenant and soon rose through the ranks to govern and lead many of them into battle.

For me, it provided an outlet for my rage and for them, it provided a level of leadership they warmly welcomed.

A football hooligan? Not quite.

I would not allow my troops to attack without just cause. I would not allow them to attack the enemy if the enemy was with a girlfriend. I would not allow swearing in front of a girl and I would not allow the taking of drugs.

For 6 days of the week, we would enjoy the music, fashion and lifestyle of our kind. On Saturdays, we would group and go to football matches.

The view in the early seventies was that skinheads were out and out aggressors. For us, based in Yeovil, no such view could ever have been correct.

If the society of the 1990`s were offered as a comparison, it would be a fact to note that the 70`s Yeovil had a minimum hard drug problem, no race problems, no real anarchy, no knife and no gun culture.

Elderly people were safe in their homes and innocent bystanders rarely found themselves embroiled in violence.

Looking back nearly 30 years, with the benefit of hindsight, the movement I was involved with, passed as an innocent, naive parody of a violent culture we never fully experienced – despite occasionally finding ourselves in danger!

We were boys, running into serious, real violence but the culture, as far as we were concerned, was pretty cool 6 days of the week if a little challenging on the one day a week we attended football matches.

It brought me several things though. It brought me an opportunity to experiment with leadership, psychology, a reading of body language, a way of practicing diplomacy and it provided me an apprenticeship in encouraging, inspiring or coercing others to pursue my own agendas.

Dodging, confronting or beating violent human beings threatening my own safety also provided me with a confidence I could radiate at will. Being able to visibly intimidate others was a useful trait and I developed a sublime personal defence system for myself.

1975

I pass my driving test on Friday 13th

1976

At 19, despite regarding myself as a decent, moral person, I was hooked on breaking into premises with friends – not with a prime objective of stealing, rather as a James Bond sense of adventure.

Entering an office purely to revolve in an MD’s chair, rearrange the pot plants or play in the lifts seemed an innocent, if juvenile pastime but that is the way I describe my actions.

Unfortunately, in entering a local college to play in the library, my friend and I discovered a Chubb safe in the principles office. With its keys on view and the stillness and solitude of a 3 day bank holiday, my friend and I made the fateful decision to open its door.

We were caught weeks later, having broken into an ice cream parlour to steal one lolly each!

On being arrested, a policy I had suggested was pursued. My friend and I agreed we would admit to every indiscretion, however trivial or small. Trouble was, the chubb safe incident had not been small, its contents amounting to several hundred pounds.

The shame and embarrassment of the reality of our actions shocked both of us. We had somehow evolved into criminals, a fact neither of us had fully appreciated until our arrest.

Surviving the Establishment

Detention Centre

Following a court appearance, my friend and I found ourselves in a police car heading south to Portsmouth. We had been sentenced top 3 months in a detention centre.

In the car, I played with the ratchets of my hand cuffs, not appreciating that each click was none negotiable! Within 30 minutes, I had inadvertently tightened them fiercely around my wrists.

Fortunately, an understanding policeman relieved me of the discomfort I had caused myself.

We arrived at Haslar Detention Centre late on the evening of the 12th August 1976, driving in through 2 huge steel gates that flanked the facility.

Reception

Within an hour, I had been stripped, showered, provided with regulation kit and been given a short, cropped haircut. Every item of my personal belongings (apart from my cigarettes) was itemised, documented and wrapped in a polythene bag and then I was marched down a long series of corridors to a small cell.

My cigarettes found a new home in a prison officer’s pocket.

Incubation

I was now alone….with my thoughts but aware that this place was home to 200 other inmates.

In a state of shock, I lay on a hard bed while a hundred memories haunted my thoughts. With the sound of men shouting outside the door, the full reality of my predicament slammed home.

Here, I would be without friendly faces, without a caring girlfriend, without family or home comforts. Those things were outside and outside was now another place – a place I could no longer go.

I was locked up, disenfranchised, trapped, incarcerated.

In an instant, without notice, a prison guard was back in my cell. He deposited a stainless steel tray onto a wooden bedside cabinet then left.

I stared at the tray. Incredulous. I had gone all day without anything to eat yet what was in front of me? A steel cup containing….water. A stainless steel bowl with ….4 crackers, a thin layer of margarine, a dusting of grated cheese.

That image sent me into a blind panic. I reached a conclusion that this place was going to be pure hell. I looked at the fare on the cabinet. Christ! It was not even porridge!

I fell asleep in that place, exhausted, tucking itchy blankets around me, fetal position, weeping

And what would I wake up to?

Defence System Engaged

I was up and dressed before the door was knocked by a passing officer at 6:30 am. Already gathering a protective defiance around me, I was a gladiator facing an arena.

The facility would be full of other young men, each with their own established defence systems. Everyone outside my door was already familiar with the territory while all I knew of the place was a couple of corridors and the cell I had slept in.

Suddenly, I was summoned and walking amongst other inmates, with “Digger”, an amicable prison warden leading me towards a long queue of men.

I worked hard on my outward physical appearance, balancing gritted teeth with a serious, “don’t f*ck with me” stare but with the edges of those characteristics blunted, hopefully enough to avoid causing confrontation.

I found myself in the queue, slowly moving towards a huge dining area. “Dancing Queen” by Abba blared out from a big radio on a shelf near the front of the room.

Sitting with others, I made a conscious point of scanning the room, occasionally catching the eyes of potential trouble. Some individuals would play the staring game but many simply diverted their own gaze from me.

I grew into my tiny patch of territory, content with my mask. After all, was I a murderer, a rapist, a psycho or merely a routine “active criminal?”. No one knew and that suited me.

When my table was ordered to go up for breakfast, I received a pleasant surprise. There was a choice of breakfasts and the food looked fantastic!

I settled for a classic English breakfast, returned to my table and enjoyed every mouthful. I learned later that my water and crackers were simply the best things the officers could find me that first evening. We had arrived late and the kitchens had been closed. The crackers could have come out of a prison wardens lunchbox!

Soon, we were filing into changing rooms to prepare for gym with a Mr Berry, the Gym officer in charge. He was in his fifties but a fit man. He had warm, smiling eyes and curly grey temples. He also shone a beaming, mischievous smile. I knew I would like Mr Berry.

Welcome To the Machine

Meanwhile, throughout a grueling gym routine, the following showers, a further visit to the canteen and then a day in heavy overall watering beetroots in a heatwave, I kept my personna – my black and yellow warning stripes on parade. Ignoring small talk, defending my space and avoiding the occasional skirmishes and fights of other inmates.

In late afternoon, there was marching practice. All inmates had to learn to march in unison and the experience was exactly like the kind of thing we might see on TV. A “Sargeant Major” figure hollering at “You nasty little men!!” I enjoyed the routine though and found the discomfort and subsequent distress of other, less disciplined inmates amusing.

That evening, after tea, there was a school type lesson and then I was back in my cell – but by now, very much the wiser.

Tomorrow, I would learn what tasks I would be given. I would also learn which dormitory I would be living in for the following months – with up to 70 other inmates. It would be Anson, Bentley or Churchill dorm. Churchill dorm being the residence of “Puppet”, the violent self proclaimed No 1 inmate from Plymouth.

From 7:00 – 8:30 pm, most inmates enjoyed “association”. Being the new boy, I was allowed to stay in my cell and learn how to pack my bed-box and belongings. There was a regular inspection routine each Sunday morning before parade and the inspection routines dictated (or rewarded) how inmates would fare in the overall regime.

As a new inmate, I was given a red tie to wear for visits (once a fortnight) and Sunday parades. Over the next week, I should earn my blue tie, providing me with the same identity as regular inmates.

However there was a fabled green tie that could be earned. Such a tie was only awarded to lads who had gained the absolute highest accolade of being regarded as perfect inmates.

A green tie could only be awarded to those with less than a month to serve but enabled the wearer to use a special, luxury games room with pool, table tennis and a further colour tv. At any one time, no more than maybe 3 or 4 green ties were granted amongst 200 + young men.

I only ever saw one lad with a green tie and within a few days of that sighting, he had gone home. I never saw another one until way into my sentence.

Incidently, there were genuine reasons for trying to become a model “prisoner” because such prisoners were allowed “outside” to help in old peoples homes or their gardens – and that usually meant access to cigarettes ……..and sugar in tea, two commodities that were not allowed in Haslar.

Inmates were rewarded for their work. “Pay” consisted of up to about 40 credits. A mars bar would cost 10 credits, a packet of fruit pastilles 8 credits and a refresher toffee bar 5 credits. Stamps could be purchased with these credits too.

I was content with my first day’s incarceration, maybe even relishing the challenge. Lying in bed, I was calculating my chances of surviving the regime and beginning to understand that maybe 75% of the inmates were merely “serving their time” and were no genuine threat to me.

I had witnessed and was aware that there were still scores of potentially dangerous inmates in the centre and reminded myself that this was only the first 24 hours of a 3 month stretch.

But I was happier and I knew I would survive….maybe even grow.

As with every day at Haslar, each one mirrored the previous and each one would be identical as tomorrows – save for the actual task that would be given to each inmate.

I slept well.

I awoke on day two to learn my fate. Would I spend 3 months hauling pails of water across the garden grounds – serving beetroots? Would I spend months on mind numbingly boring manufacturing tasks in the “factories” or would I be lucky and earn a place in the kitchens.

All the above tasks were heavily supervised and there were better and worse options. What would mine be?

I had been walking a fine line. Presenting myself as an enthusiastic inmate to officers, revealing my “true” self to just a couple of inmates but worked hard on projecting a tough outer shell to everyone else.

Day two brought a surprise and a potentially devastating setback. The very good news was that I was to become an “orderly”. An inmate with special responsibility. The official job was Gym / Yard orderly and meant that in the morning, I would assist Mr Berry in the Gym and in the afternoon, unsupervised, I would maintain the acres of land (and tarmac) around the parade ground.

There were only a couple of orderly posts in the whole place. This was immediate promotion, almost as valuable as earning a green tie!

The bad news was less palatable. I would be joining Churchill dorm with my bed adjacent to “Puppet”, the volatile inmate who thought he ran the place!

And there was something else.

According to tradition, ALL new inmates had to perform a humiliating initiation ceremony in front of every inmate in the dormitory they were joining.

Naked, after lights out but bathed in the blue night light of the room, new inmates were expected to knot their ties on their privates and run the gauntlet past all the inmates in their dorm.

I had a real big problem with that.

All day, I carried out my duties with a sickening sense of foreboding. I was already trying to imagine what would happen to me that evening. I was trying to comprehend how I would defend myself against a room full of 70 men expecting me to “perform”.

I had no intention of humiliating myself but was imagining being picked up physically, against my will, possibly by a dozen men?

Would I find myself at the centre of some barbaric act – like the scene from some second rate B movie jungle kidnapping?

Would they simply attack me? Beat me up? How could I know?

All I knew was that I was not going to volunteer for the humiliating spectacle demanded of me.

Mid afternoon, I was relieved of my duties to move my bed-box into Churchill dorm. Digger joined me, gave me a sweet and sat on the edge of my bed.

I can’t remember asking him about any initiation ceremony but he did offer some simple advice. Perhaps sensing my anxiety for the first time, he told me to just try to keep myself to myself.

At 7:00 pm, just after dinner, everyone goes to association. Everyone except me. I am lying on my bed, arms folded behind my neck, ankles crossed, staring – simmering.

I have dropped my black and yellow wasp stripes. I am not giving off signals that invite respect. Instead, I am recalling my days back in Yeovil. I am summoning my most intimidating thoughts and converting them into an aura of contained rage.

“Dare anyone catch my gaze”, I repeat in my mind. My teeth are clenched, my mouth open just a fraction, my eyes wide, fixed on some imaginary point above the opposite bed.. Neck stiff, the cheeks of my face taught – staring, staring straight ahead.

An occasional visitor returns to the dorm, maybe to collect a mars bar or packet of sweets. I stare ahead. Half an hour later, another inmate enters, walks past the foot of my bed offering a cheery “Alright mush?”

I ignore him. Stare through him.

I am alone again. I am also aware that the image I have been generating is no longer a mask. My mental self preservation has summoned up some other version of me – but this version is a volatile, unexploded bomb.

I rise from the bed, gather my kit and walk down to the toilet and shower area. There I wash, clean my teeth and pee. Walking back up to my bed, I ignore someone crossing my line of vision.

It’s early but I undress, putting on regulation pyjama bottoms but changing into a turquoise work T-Shirt – then I slip into bed, folding the sheets and blanket neatly to a point level with my navel.

Arms go back behind my head and I stare straight ahead.

I was fit, had developed a broad chest and had wide shoulders. In my “condition”, I was lying chest puffed out, anxious but feeling as dangerous and as strong as I could ever feel.

Teeth grinding, gritted, grimacing, “Anyone DARE…”

I heard Puppet enter the dorm and heard laughing and barracking. Someone in the far corner of the room pulled someone else to the ground. I just kept staring.

Over the next 5 – 10 minutes, just about everyone in the dorm had passed my bed to shave and wash at the bottom. I just kept staring – not at anyone – just staring ahead.

Puppet was in the corner of my vision now, sitting on the end of his bed. Boasting about something, swearing about something else – but not directing anything at me.

He looked though. For a second, Puppet did look across at the psycho in the work T. shirt – and the psycho moved his gaze for the first time and stared back at Puppet.

He had a 5-o clock shadow, permed black hair and the gaze of someone who could play the same deadly game I was playing. The difference was, his gaze was less intense, his look was less threatening, and his teeth were less gritted. If Puppet had been anticipating trouble, it looked like he was “off duty” or was happy to indicate to me that he was off duty!

I stared at Puppet and he saw a loaded gun. I had hours or was it years of intensely focussed menace in that stare and Puppet read it right – and looked away.

The rest of the dorm had been a buzz of voices as everyone performed the ritual of preparing for bed.

A few minutes later, Benny Hill, a Hitler look alike in prison uniform (and a temperament to match), marched into the dorm and warned us all that we had five more minutes till lights out.

Then, suddenly, the room lost its colour and the dorm was bathed in an eerie blue light – like moonlight.

Immediately all hell let loose…but it was not directed at me.

At the bottom of the dorm, a lad called Galpin had had the bottom end of his bed picked up by Puppet and half a dozen others. With the lad still inside it, they had slammed the bed and Galpin into the wall.

Then, before Benny Hill had rushed back to investigate the commotion, everyone had run back to their beds and tucked up innocently. By the time the lights came on, Galpin was the only one standing in the dorm.

Benny Hill slapped the lad and then marched him off to run a mile around the parade ground. Benny Hill did not like people getting out of bed after lights out – unless he had given them permission!

I lay flat, staring up at the ceiling.

Nobody bothered me and I had not had to perform the ritual. The “sugar plum fairy”.

Puppet never acknowledged, spoke to or hassled me in the final days before he left Haslar but my show of colours, my show of self preservation acted as a great insurance policy.

And my new role as Gym orderly would soon serve to enhance that policy over the following weeks and months.

Gym Orderly

The role of Gym orderly, aside from keeping the gym and showers tidy, was to support Mr. Berry during Gym.

Put bluntly, at every gym session, with every group of inmates, Mr. Berry would tell everyone that “Goodland” was there to see that they performed their gym routines accurately without shirking or missing any exercises.

By stating such a case, Mr Berry done me a series of favors. He talked up my position so much, I inherited his authority.“

“If Goodland fails to make you perform properly”, he would claim, then “you lot will end up doing twice the number of routines and Goodland will have to pay a penance for your failings”.

“This will not please me or Goodland”, he would add with a twinkle in his eye.

In reality, the role was an amazing one for me. I became the portal, the first regular inmate that new recruits met in the gym – and of course, I made sure THEY performed flawlessly – or at least appeared to!

One time, an absolute nightmare of a man was presented to me. As a new inmate, the guy was as scared as I remember being – despite having tattoos on his forehead and looking like a killer.

A rhino of a man, he was virtually incapable of lifting his legs above his head (lying on his back on sloping benches).

I was able to force the guy to at least attempt the moves, immediately demonstrating my will upon him – effectively neutralizing any threat he might have posed me. Initially, he was terrified of me.

Later though, after letting him experience the hell of the exercises, I would give the guy a friendly wink and AID him by taking his weight or allowing him to cheat!

This was interpreted as an act that would spare him further suffering and taken as an act of kindness or friendship.

As Gym orderly, I processed scores of new inmates, nipped problems in the bud and made lots of new friends!

Within barely two weeks of being in Haslar, I was a part of the furniture, respected by most, if not all, and held no fear for my physical well being.

I did not encounter another Puppet character during the rest of my stay at Haslar because I had already absorbed and become such a figure myself.

Nights in the dorm turned into story telling sessions after lights out and over the months, I enjoyed a kind of war time spirit with my fellow inmates.

Being A Catholic

From the first Sunday, I had been asked what religion I was. John, my friend, who had come in with me, used to like to stay by my side so when I remembered my mother had been a Catholic; I just claimed the same.

John said he was a Catholic too just so that he could join me in the quite Catholic chapel instead of being with the hundreds of Church of England rabble singing “All things bright and beautiful” each week!

The Chapel had a small window from which the Gosport ferry could be spied. It represented the only view of freedom and the outside world. Sucking on imaginary cigarettes, John and I would reenact the classic scene from “Catch the Midnight Express!” but our script became became “Catch the Gosport Ferry!”

Trouble was, being a Catholic involved chanting things – something John had never experienced. He did quite well though – until he was expected to drink the blood of Christ and repeat certain sayings.

After a couple of weeks, John could not stand the pretence anymore and was becoming quite stressed.

One Sunday, to my surprise, he got up mid chant and walked to the back of the chapel and said something quietly to Benny Hill, the officer on duty.

“What was that Pinnington? YOU DON’T WANT TO BE A CATHOLIC ANYMORE???”

I froze, expecting hell to open up beneath my feet but no one else commented and John was unceremoniously dumped back into the C of E crowd.

“All things bright and beautiful”.

Near the end of my term, I did get my green tie, (and went out on day release where I could cajole cigs off the gardener), but was the only one with said mythical tie! I had use of the exclusive pool table and Ping-Pong table – but no one to play with!

John got his green tie too – but lost it within days for being caught out trying to whiten his teeth with Vim!

Disconcertingly, since my prostrate cancer diagnosis of 2021, my own Bridport family have become conspicuous by their absence.

I won’t elaborate too much here but, sure, facing my own mortality without help or support from that direction has been, and continues to be, quite a challenging and bewildering reality.

Nevertheless, being a pragmatic and quite self contained human being, I think I cope pretty well.

It all feels like a million years ago now but there was a time when life was very, very different.

Back in 1977, I’d moved from Yeovil to Bridport and had started working in The Greyhound Inn, (Now a Wetherspoons pub), which was the town’s most popular bar.

Monday 18th of May, 1980

I was sitting by the window in Liptons, the coffee shop above the town centre premises that is now Boots, the chemist. I was with my best friend, Tim Stocker, quietly chatting and gazing out at the traffic. Tim was laughing because he had just witnessed the mad Major stepping out between the vehicles, directing traffic below us in the street.

It was dinnertime, Monday 18th of May, 1980 and it is easy for me to recall the time and date because other surreal events also happened that day!

While we talked, Tim noticed something falling from the sky and, for a few moments, the pair of us thought we were witnessing a flurry of snow  – but it was a beautiful and sunny May day so it couldn’t have been snow.

The roofs of cars and the window ledge the other side of the glass was being covered by a thin film of grey / white flakes and Tim realised that the flakes drifting in the spring breeze were tiny filaments of ash.

We reasoned that, somewhere nearby, a dwelling or shop might be ablaze, on fire.

Then I was distracted by something else.

Across the road, walking up West Street, directly outside Smith and Smiths, I caught sight of a beautiful, blonde haired girl.

I said, “Wow Tim. Look across the road!” and pointed to the vision I had just witnessed.

Gliding up the street like some aloof Vogue model entirely oblivious to the stares of others, Tim caught sight of her just as she entered the corner of South street and disappeared through the entrance of the George Hotel doorway.

“I think I have just seen the most beautiful girl on earth!” I uttered.

How do I remember that day? Well … It was the day after the St Helen’s volcano erupted in Washington, USA, causing damage amounting to 2·5 billion dollars.

The explosion blew the whole mountain side off and sent a massive ash plume high into the stratosphere.

That was the ash that was pitching on the cars in Bridport … and, presumably, much  of the planet!

A month later, I saw the girl again, in the top bar of The Greyhound Hotel, where I worked part time as a barman and I served her a double vodka.

At closing time, men were buzzing around the girl like butterflies around a buddleia bush and folk were planning to move on to the Asker’s Motel nightclub to party late into the night.

I stepped out from behind the bar to clear glasses from the tables and our eyes met and I said something like, “Are you going on to Askers … or do you fancy helping me with the washing up?”

She laughed and pondered the question for a few seconds as I turned and started walking back towards the bar area … and then I stopped, looked at her and made a gesture to throw her a tea towel …

“I could do with a hand” I said.

Jackie gave me a positive response, I threw her the tea towel and, as everyone else filed out and down the stairs, Jackie and I set about washing up the glasses and ashtrays.

That night, Jackie was happy to be invited back to my little flat and, in a most delicate and gentle moment…….. we kissed.

I remember the first few months we dated. It was very casual. We just met up at weekends or shared a Saturday night out. The arrangement worked ok for a while but then Jackie decided she didn’t want to be just a part time girlfriend and we mutually agreed to end our relationship though, subconsciously, I think we both knew we wanted something different … or something more.

At that immediate time, I just accepted the situation; didn’t think much more about it and Jackie said bye, walked out of the flat at Rope Walks and headed home. However, within several minutes, certainly within less than half an hour, I felt butterflies in the pit of my stomach and realised I could not let Jackie slip away so easily.

Panic

A panic enveloped me and, for the very first time in the entirety of my 24 years, a serious urgency to, somehow, rewind back time and, likewise, transform a future I was yet to step into, took hold of my complete psyche.

With novel and alien emotional feelings I had never experienced or ever felt before, I realised I could not let this girl exit my life.

So I ran …

I ran the mile to Jackie’s parent’s home and, in that 5 minutes, rewrote and redefined the complete course of my whole destiny.

A destiny that would bring me love story and transform the entire meaning of my life.

Mount St. Helens is a stratovolcano located in the state of Washington in the United States. It is the most active volcano in the Cascade Range and has a history of frequent eruptions.

On May 18, 1980, Mount St. Helens experienced a catastrophic eruption that was one of the most significant volcanic eruptions in the United States in the 20th century. The eruption was triggered by an earthquake that caused the mountain’s north slope to collapse, leading to a massive landslide. The landslide, along with the explosive eruption, caused widespread destruction and loss of life.

During the eruption, a large ash cloud was ejected into the atmosphere, spreading ash and volcanic debris over a wide area. The ash cloud reached a height of about 80,000 feet and drifted across much of the United States, causing widespread disruption to air travel. The eruption also generated pyroclastic flows, which are fast-moving clouds of hot gas and ash that can reach temperatures of up to 1,200 degrees Fahrenheit. These flows travelled down the mountain and devastated the surrounding landscape.

In total, the eruption killed 57 people, including several volcanologists who were studying the mountain, and caused more than $1 billion in damages. Despite the destruction caused by the eruption, Mount St. Helens has continued to erupt periodically over the years, and the area around the mountain is now a popular destination for tourists and scientists who want to learn more about volcanoes.

A little slice of paradise

Situated just off the main thoroughfare of the northern end of Bridport’s famous South street market, Beach cottage lies hidden at the end of a well worn 16th century ancient passageway that regularly bewitches and halts people in their tracks.

It is common, sometimes several times a day, for folk to just stop and gaze down the alley and comment on its unique demeanour as they view the juxtoposition of the dark passage revealing the bright and colourful explosion of flowers I’ve, purposely, presented in hanging baskets at its far end.

And beyond the pastel colours of said hanging baskets, an inquisitive observer is then seduced and drawn in by the vision and promise of the 150ft 1940’s style garden that lies beyond.

I understand that not everyone may appreciate or grasp the profound nature of being able to read an ancient landscape or view a vast geological timeline in the manner and fashion I choose to view our world but large tracts of West Dorset, (almost uniquely, I’d claim), represent a, virtually, untouched natural environment where evidence of earth’s early formation, (and records of early man’s prehistoric Hunter – Gatherer past), are still written large in the landscape.

And I promise you, once you begin to examine and appreciate Dorset’s unique and spectacular landscapes, geology and ancient history, it is as if you have been given a real life time machine!

I mean; just imagine bending down on one knee in the rich black mineralised soil of a deep ploughed furrow somewhere out in the middle of nowhere … and to then find, retrieve and hold a near 2000 year old Roman bronze coin that has not felt a human gaze placed upon it since the time of Jesus!

Anyway … with just a little guidance from myself via these pages, I hope to use this section of the website to highlight ancient wonders of West Dorset; wonders that represent treasures that lie hidden in plain sight just beyond or beneath the surface veneer of the spectacular landscapes and visions that Dorset gifts us.

All that said; actually experiencing such a profound phenomenon does involve a certain suspension of belief in as much as we need to detach ourselves from our hectic 21st century view of the world.

Once achieved though, we will enter a mindset where we can begin to connect the corners and edge pieces of an old and ancient puzzle together and begin to see the bigger picture.

So lets start that process now …

I’m sure, if you’re young, you’ve watched amazing BBC documentaries like Prehistoric Planet featuring narration by David Attenborough and if you’re older, you can recall movies like 1 Million Years BC, with an iconic Raquel Welch striding out of a prehistoric ocean in a fur lined bikini.

Such visions do, indeed, belong to a past that is lost in the annuls of time yet if you live near or frequent a West Dorset location like Bridport or Charmouth, such prehistoric geological or ancient historical locations can be explored by simply taking a short walk to the beach or the countryside.

And that’s the reason I’m so passionate about Dorset and ancient history in general.

Because, here in West Dorset, unlike 85% of the UK’s population, (who live in built up or city environments), we have the whole gamut of geological and human history laid out, almost undisturbed or untarnished right before our eyes.

Although the earth is approx 4.5 billion years old, for expediency and convenience, I’m going to start pondering the history of ancient Dorset at about 290 million years ago at a time when earth was a single continent called Pangea.

Back then, Dorset, or at least the real estate we now label as Dorset, would have been residing on a slab of rock right over the equator. (A teutonic plate we know today as Eurasia)

Dinosaurs were a thing back then and many of the creatures we uncover in fossil form along our own West Dorset coast are lifeforms that thrived in the shallow seas and red deserts that Dorset (and Devon) now represents and reveals in the geological record.

And today, we have developed a global record of fossil artefacts documenting all of the world’s fossil finds and discoveries across the planet.

The scientific discipline that explores and examines such artefacts is called Paleontology; a science first pioneered by a West Dorset woman of the 18th century.

Around 1811, when Mary Anning was 12 years old, she searched for and painstakingly dug out the outline of a 5.2-metre-long ancient fossilised skeleton from the cliffs at Lyme Regis.

Now recognised as the mother of Paleontology, the “monster” she discovered, (being a huge fossilised Ichthyosaur), represents the start of the science of paleontology.

Footnote. This relic of a painting of Mary Anning contains something so very, very close to my heart.

Can you see it? In the far distance?

Its the glorious profile of the iconic promontory that is Thorncombe Beacon, but this time as viewed from the south of Lyme Regis.

And just in front of Thorncombe Beacon?

Golden Cap and what used to be the Golden Cap estate where my own family once owned and ran a dairy farm.

The Golden Cap estate is now owned by the National Trust with Filcombe Farm now designated the National Trust’s Southern base and HQ.

My dinosaur friends

Incidently, these are my dinosaurs; a pair of breeding Herring gulls that have been sharing my own personal space for the past 13 years; nesting either between Beach cottage’s chimneys or on the flat roof of the shop next door.

And without fail, each year, they produce at least two, and sometimes three, fledgling gulls that I have the pleasure of witnessing growing up each and every season.

In the early years of living at Beach cottage, the arrival of the eggs and then the manifestation of the chicks themselves, turned the protective female dinosaur on my roof into a psychotic raptor and I would find myself being dive bombed by the dachhound sized creature as it dived at me out of the sky, sun behind it, just like a Japanese Kamikazi plane making a deadly and final airborne attack.

Back then, (and in being a protected species), I had to figure out a way to defuse the violent and aggressive situation without either the gull or myself coming to harm so I befriended the gull’s male partner and, in reasoning with him and coming to a mutual arrangment of detente, was able to build a rapport by learning the gull’s language!

I’d already acknowledged various sounds and phrases the pair had used in talking to each other or warning others of their presence and established that a “Gab,gab, gab” sound was a gull phrase that translated as “I see you … I’m chilled right now … but don’t dare mess with me.”

I had also learned that they would chortle quite happily when content or relaxed … so, in using the phrase and sound(s) when in the male gull’s company, I was able to inform the birds that I was conscious of their presence but content or happy to let them be.

And although we humans (should) generally agree that it is taboo to feed Herring gulls in a public setting, I took the executive decision to sparingly use food as a bargaining chip to build up our relationship in the private communal area of Beach cottage to further break down barriers.

These days, we are best friends and the pair of gulls will even walk across my study roof and tap, tap, tap the bedroom window to deliver me my early morning wake up call or even to present their fledgling chicks to me to further build a mutual bond.

–

OK. Lets get back to some Dorset history.

Incredibly, directly as a result of the receding ice cliffs of the last melting ice age, the miracle that is our famous and unique Chesil beach only formed a mere 20,000 years ago as a result of that geological upheaval.  

And the earliest record of prehistoric Hunter Gatherer’s moving into what is now Southern England from the continent of what is now Europe, (and now West Dorset), took place only 10,000 years ago and just a couple of miles west from what is now the market town of Bridport, Dorset (My home town).

Remains and artifacts of early occupation being discovered just south of Doghouse Farm, an idylic and magical location where, as a tourist or hiker, you can order a cream tea in a fabulous 1940’s style environment and experience wild birds landing and perching on the back of your chair, (or table), while you sip a cup of Earl Grey in the teahouse gardens.

In fact, that location is situated on what is now a rugged, windswept and spectacular geological promontory, (or cliff edge), know as Thorncombe Beacon; the beacon being a constantly reoccuring theme, landmark and datum point, (and the surname of my own online Beach Thorncombe alter ego), referenced throughout this website.

Standing stones. No vr found yet. (I’ve lost original file)

https://momento360.com/e/u/69fe278b946541219c4975c743898b5e?utm_campaign=embed&utm_source=other&heading=15.6&pitch=-1&field-of-view=75&size=medium&display-plan=true

Aside from the first image, Winterbourne Abbas stone circle, (which you can view in 3D), all subsequent DJI Mini 3 Pro drone images are draft ones yet to have their 3D versions added.

Nevertheless, I have begun the task of documenting ALL ancient Dorset hillforts, Anglo-Romano villas and related sites or arheological or historical interest.

“Set against the fantastic ocean backdrop of Lyme Bay, my particular cliffs lie like scattered books, their ancient pages either layered or fanned open revealing strata, rocks and huge fossils recording 185 million years of Earth’s history, some of the best parts of which lie just a short cycle ride across the fields from Beach cottage.” Beach Thorncombe

Just a mile from home, atop a promontory overlooking the breath-taking Lyme Bay coastline, I can step back into an ancient landscape and pluck 2000 year old coins from the rich black mineralised ploughed soil.

I’ll not share the name of the site or the immediate location but will say that my ancient site is one of several Anglo-Romano settlements scattered across the South West of England.

Anglo-Roman settlements refer to communities that were established in Britain during the period of Roman rule, which lasted from 43 AD to around 410 AD. These settlements were often located near Roman military outposts or along major transportation routes, and were home to a mix of Roman soldiers and civilians, as well as indigenous Britons. The Romans established a number of towns and cities in Britain, and many of these settlements continue to be important centres of population and commerce today.

From coinage, artefacts and the reading of the landscape, I can say that my site has been active for several thousand years and, certainly, occupied continuously through 4 centuries of Roman rule.

You can smell the history at one of my favourite archaeological haunts.

The site, an unclassified Anglo-Romano dwelling, is just a 15 minute hike from home.

It is 1986 and I’ve arrived at Chisels just as farmer, Mr Sorrell, has pulled up the blade of his deep steel plough and driven his tractor downfield back home for tea and, as I survey the site, I can smell the rich black soil on the evening air.

The feeling I experience on arrival, is similar to the feeling an angler might get on setting up at one of his favourite fishing spots. It is a feeling of excitement and anticipation.

Within 30 seconds, plucked from the moist dark earth, I am turning over a fragment of blackware in my fingers. A shard of pottery made locally by the Durotriges, the Iron Age tribes who lived atop this promontory thousands of years before the Romans invaded our island in 43AD. (2000 years ago). Mass produced and sent all over the Roman world, my shard is probably a little younger, maybe 1700 years old … and part of the remains of the last century of Roman rule. (about 350AD or about 1673 years ago).

Over the years, I have plucked over 200+ roman coins from this field, pacing out, marking and recording every find. I have also amassed a collection of Roman brooches, odd fragments of rings and even a bronze sewing needle with a hole in it. Other finds include; lead loom weights, buckets of Roman and blackware pottery and a very early Neolithic pebble axe, (pitted at one end and probably 3,000 – 4,000 yrs old). A meteorite and more modern medieval finds make up some of the other treasures I have picked up in the black, mineralised soil of the ploughed fields.

The majority of finds consist of 3rd – 4th century artifacts … mainly Roman coins … and those coins tell their own story.

Large and lumpy coinage of the 1st century lie mainly at the bottom, far end of the field, a spot where the rolling waves of Chesil beach can be spied – along with any unwelcome visitors threatening the Roman garrison that probably occupied that area back in the 1st century BCE. (I imagine that part of the site being the first ‘outpost’ for obvious military and defensive purposes).

Along the higher Northern edge of the field, I locate 2nd and 3rd century radiate head coinage depicting the Roman Emperor fashion of wearing a crown of thorns, (similar to what Jesus is often depicted wearing at the crucifixion) , suggesting that the site had evolved into a villa settlement, (with huts protected inside the villa walls), by the 2nd – 3rd century of Roman occupation.

However, the vast bulk of the coins I have collected, logged and lent to our junior school every year, are the 4th century ‘Aes’ of Constantine, Constantanius and Constans coinage. Tiny, low value, coinage reflecting the state of the Roman Empire by the 4th century.

400 years on from the invasion of 43AD, with resources becoming stretched or scarce, the Romans faced a period of time when they had to tighten their belts and reduce the value and quality of their coinage so the coins shrank in size. (The smallest were smaller than aspirins and called Minimissimi).

Constantine had a big family and I guess I have a coin of just about all of them!

I have discovered that there are more than 270 ‘villa sites’ in the South West of England. Truth is, if you live in England, you will probably have a nearby.

In 1199, King John became King of England, Duke of Normandy (in France), Duke of Aquitaine (in France), Count of Anjou (in France), and Lord of Ireland.

He inherited England and most of western France where he was more influencial and powerful than the King of France himself.

And guess where he first planned and then built himself a “hunting lodge”, creating a typical motte and bailey castle structure down at the southern end of his kingdom?

The answer?

Powerstock

Many motte and bailey castles, including those built during the reign of King John, were initially constructed from wood, with stone later being used to replace or strengthen parts of the structure.  However, there can be little doubt that the remains of the castle at Powerstock clearly indicate that this castle was more likely to have been a classic and highly intimidating fairy tale like structure as indicated below.

In 1199, King John became King of England, Duke of Normandy (in France), Duke of Aquitaine (in France), Count of Anjou (in France), and Lord of Ireland.

He inherited England and most of western France where he was more influencial and powerful than the King of France himself.

And guess where he first planned and then built himself a “hunting lodge”, creating a typical motte and bailey castle structure down at the southern end of his kingdom?

The answer?

Powerstock

Many motte and bailey castles, including those built during the reign of King John, were initially constructed from wood, with stone later being used to replace or strengthen parts of the structure.  However, there can be little doubt that the remains of the castle at Powerstock clearly indicate that this castle was more likely to have been a classic and highly intimidating fairy tale like structure as indicated below.

Coastal Dorset

Whether online or off, the moment folk find out that I’m an internationally acclaimed inventor, I always hear the same thing.

“So what did you invent?”

And on hearing that seemingly innocent and anticipated question, my heart usually sinks, (I’ll explain why as this story unfolds), and a kind of post traumatic anxiety washes over me as the question sets off a vast line of painful emotive dominoes tumbling across my psyche the same way you might feel if someone ever asked you; “So what was it like when you had that miscarriage?” OR “So what was it like when you got diagnosed with that debilitating terminal illness?” though, obviously, the person asking the question, possibly filled with a certain intrigue and desire to show some genuine interest in my life, has no idea that they’ve just poked a stick into a huge wasp’s nest of emotions that, even today, can still debillitate me.

But sometimes, just occasionally, I feel comfy enough to share the extra-ordinary events that the telling of the story demands.

And, honestly? It is for that reason that this website exists because it is only by telling the whole story, in a well defined and structured way, that I can justify and validate the complete narrative and context of who I am and what I am as a human being.

And sure, while I’ve been preparing for the telling of my story for over 20 years, having accumulated a huge journal of text, anecdotes, media and other resources for that purpose, my prostate cancer diagnosis has meant that, instead of pursuing the project in retirement as I had intended to, there is a certain urgency in beginning that process now for fear that there may not be enough time to do so otherwise.

Hence … Here I am in my mid 60’s, decanting all I have to say on the subject, as time ticks, ticks, ticks away unceasingly as the sands of my personal hour glass shift from life into death.

But hey! Maybe that is a good thing because … well … we creative types always need a certain stimulus to engage and inspire us to focus on our work so what better stimulation could there ever be than to meet a certain deadline and objective before life itself is stolen from us?

So there …

It turns out that my own particular negative health based diagnosis is actually delivering me the positive force and energy I need to get this project underway and, hopefully, completed on time.

Thank you for indulging me by allowing me to explain the above so labouriously.

But the great news?

I have a tale to tale that really is worth the telling.

Now please continue by reading The Greedy Monkey Story where I will explain the reason why I created An entirely new engineering principle and a new technology that was inspired by an ancient fable and concept that had existed but remained hidden in plain sight for over 2000 years.

The GM Story

1993

The Problem

When my father had a valuable garden ornament stolen from his lawn, I wanted to ensure that such an incident could never happen again so decidedto investigate security and anchoring solutions to meet that need.

I reasoned I should look for some kind of invisible, tamper-proof system so that burglars or thieves couldn’t easily unbolt, saw through or cut whatever would be holding down the secured object.

I also wanted to use concrete as a foundation but not have the hassle of having to dig up or excavate the concrete if dad ever moved house or needed to remove secured object(s) for maintenance or repair.

However, when I searched the DIY stores and locksmiths for a suitable invisible, tamper-proof anchoring / security solution, I soon realised that no such system existed.

I would have to invent one!

The Solution

I solved the problem when I remembered a story about how African tribesfolk used an ancient method to catch monkeys.

They would place fruit in a hollow tree and wait for a monkey to find it.

A monkey would arrive, put its hand inside the hole and grab the fruit.

In grabbing the fruit, its balled fist would then be too large to come out of the hole and, unwilling to let go of its prize, the Greedy Monkey would stay there until the hunters arrived.

It was trapped!

The Mechanism

My patented Gravity Technology uses a similar principle.

A ball – to represent the fruit, a patented chamber – to represent the hole in the tree, and a patented fastener – to represent the monkey’s hand.

An invisible release tube provides a means for authorised users to activate the system.

The simplicity of the technology allows devices to work in ground based, wall based and overhead applications.

It means that any object traditionally sited, (trapped), in solid concrete can be released instantly without keys, costly excavation, labour or fuss.

While it is easy, (or natural), to comprehend the technology working as a simple fastener, an anchoring device or a traditional security system in the ground, (or when attached to a wall or ceiling), those applications represent just a fraction of the ways the technology can be deployed.

The system will also function as an interactive or intelligent feed back system or interface or form the basis for exotic or novel  left-field applications also.

For example, used as an anchoring system where the ingress of water might represent a threat, using a soluble ball in the chamber, (rather than a stainless steel ball bearing) would ensure that, on the arrival of water or a fluid in a system, the soluble ball would dissolve and disintergrate, enabling an anchored object to be released to float to the surface as an area was flooded or compromised.

… and, relying only on one moving part and gravity, the system lends itself to many LEO and off world applications also.

Plaster of Paris, Lego, wood, recycled wood, brick, concrete, steel, composite materials, polypropelene.

These were just a few of the materials I experimented with while based at my business address and R & D facility at Pymore Mills Industrial estate, Bridport back in 1996.

Yeah. I know.

This is not a very cool or sexy topic, is it?

That said, this page may be good for me to use as a device to vent or find some kind of solace … assuming I choose to give the situation my valuable time.

But not yet though. (Writing, talking or even thinking about my prediciment tends to steal energy and resolve I’ve built up to deal with the condition so I don’t really enjoy visiting the topic).

But hey. I’ll use this page when I need to.

Currently, as of October 2023, to an outside observer, I probably appear pretty together, upbeat and cheery.

However, living a life with cancer is not actually that thrilling. In fact, it’s quite tedious and in this post, unlike on other pages discussing this topic, I’ll just share an account of a routine, average day.

Except we have to start such a day at bedtime.

Bedtime is tough because it represents the start of a bit of a grind.

Bedtime means I’m entering the challenge of getting through the night.

That process can start as early as 8pm. ie. If I’ve been challenged by my innate natural need to present my previous day as being cool, OK or absolutely fine to the outside world, I end up just plain exhausted by the energy expended in such deceit and fall into bed relieved to be able to drop the pretence.

Then, despite my failing eyesight, (I can’t read a PC screen or mobile device without glasses any more), I generally rely on the 50″ TV in the bedroom to deliver me some escapism in the form of on demand Coronation Street drama or I pursue some YouTube related adventure watching Space X Starship progress , artificial intelligence news or current affairs fodder to occupy my incessant need for intellectual stimulation … all the while knowing that waves of hot sweat and chills will soon force me to shout “Alexa. Fan on” and “Alexa Air on” to push air my way via one of two strategically placed smart air conditioning units. (I have a third manually controlled remote air fan if I need even more additional cooling).

I also regulate my temperature with a dry towel and two water soaked flannels hanging off the bedstead while, beyond my control, I sweat into the sheets from my back, shoulders and limbs.

Yeah. It’s pretty grim.

AND, lest we forget, even if or when I eventually defy such problematic issues and drop off to sleep, my prostate condition guarantees I wake up every couple of hours to pee … which prompts the whole night sweat thing to grip me all over again.

So … yeah … bedtime … nightimes … they are not my favourite times of any given day.

Yes. Cancer is a bummer and, (pause), God, yes I feel really lousy most mornings after a now routine nightly regime of hot sweats, visits to the bathroom and constant insomnia BUT, once awake and upright, (usually by around 9:30am), I return to the regular Chris Goodland I recognise and then I just get on with life.

And getting on with life has taken on some new and profound extra meaning since the onset of the illness although, I might add, I don’t recognise any narrative that suggests that I am “battling cancer” or battling with cancer, (Not yet anyway), ALTHOUGH, at any moment, at any time, as an obvious consequence of enduring such an insidious disease, I may discover some different part, (or parts), of my body rotting from within).

UPDATE: Actually, as of February 1st, 2024, that process may, (or may not) have already happened although the strange, burning sensation in the calf of my left leg could be a number of things including;

a) A mere pulled muscle. b) Another blood clot? c) A section of numb skin manifesting as a result of  sciatica

brought about by the botched cancer biopsy? d) Bone cancer in that same leg?

Dunno. Dunno quite what is going on so I’ve just gotta wait a few days to see if the issue passes or dissipates. Hope it does.

Anyway; I have other issues troubling me, worse than cancer, and they come from an unexpected direction.

From what I used to think was family.

Abandoned!

Yep. It’s bewlidering but … since telling my immediate Bridport family about my cancer diagnosis in July 2020, ex wife Jackie, son Oliver and daughter Sophie, (who, in their 30’s, still live with Jackie in our original family home), have all entirely blanked me.

I have no understanding or knowledge as to why our previously happy relationships changed once I got cancer and can only assume that none of them want to be involved with the prospect of caring for me if or when I get truly sick or mortally ill. 🙁

Fair enough. I appreciate my dying will be a challenge but is it fair or morally OK for them to just abandon and delete me entirely from their lives?

Thus, while not my ideal choice or preference, with a prospect of not having anyone close to grieve me, I guess the top of my bucket list is to leave everything neat, tidy and sewn up, (see below), and to die and be buried without much fuss or ceremony. Therefore, this website, (or another, more comprehensive one I’ve created elsewhere online), may take on a much more poigant but important role.

I guess that what I’m really saying is that I want THIS SITE, (or one like it), to be the source and focus of any celebration of my life and that I want anybody reading these words to just know that I’ve loved every experience we may have ever shared together! x

That said, something else has arisen. ie. Some sense of wishing to get my affairs in order, both to simplify my life while I’m still here AND to put my affairs in order for when I’m not.

Thus the following considerations, (below), are things I just want to acheive or get done before that time comes.

My goodness, I have so much STUFF!

So … also on my bucket list is to transform the glorious clutter and joy that is my Beach cottage home into a fabulous expression of minimalism!

And pursue a few other projects including;

During 2024, my plan is, (or was), to document and produce a 3D video / photo catalogue of all the fab ancient West Dorset haunts and sites of historical interest I’ve enjoyed exploring these last 40 years.

I’m currently visiting ancient Iron Age hillforts in Dorset and photographing them in 3D with my DJI Mini 3 Pro drone.

What better way to appreciate the wonder and awe of living this life?

Junction Rock adventure

The plan is to choose a time and date when the tide goes out a real long way, (a Spring tide), and to then walk from the headland of the rocks West of Eype beach, around a couple of coves to the East end of Seatown beach, a location known as Junction Rock where giant 6ft starfish, (in fossil form), lie with other rare and exotic Jurassic fossils.

Potential dangers include encountering soft blue lias rock, quicksand and football sized pebbles all capable of rendering a person vulnerable to be trapped by an inevitable incoming tide. (This route is usually under water save for the opportunities offered by pursuing the adventure when the tide allows).

Birth of Beach

Today, Beach is just my pen name. A non de plume. A pseudonym. However, it is also an online representation of me that has been in use since September 1999, when I first created a public profile on a Mutual Friendship website.

That site was very basic back then, allowing for a username, just one picture and a profile description. The username I chose for that first profile was “On The Beach”.

But why did I choose “On The Beach” as my online moniker? 

On the Beach is a classic novel written by Neville Shute and it has a particularly appropriate plot-line because in the book, the world lies in tatters, having been devastated by a thermonuclear war.

The story follows the last pockets of humanity attempting to survive the post-apocalyptic, end of world scenario, they find themselves in.

I felt in the same situation when I let my passion for business interfere with my 20 year love story of a marriage. A marriage that imploded spectacularly with fearsome consequences and fallout as the Gravity Venture grew more invasive and successful.

On The Beach, therefore, easily qualified as an appropriate screen name to reflect wher I was back in late 1999 when I joined Midsummer, an online mutual friendship site started that same year.

There were other reasons for choosing the screen-name also because Bridport harbour, (renamed West Bay with the arrival of the train and subsequent tourists in 1884), was always my spiritual home, way, way before I ever actually moved from Yeovil to Bridport so the sentiment On The Beach also qualifies, being a location I am always content and happy to be near or involved with.

The wilds of West Dorset, even today, remain, largely, undiscovered and explored when compared to the neighbouring counties of Devon or Cornwall and I have delighted in escaping this 20th / 21st century world by losing myself in the tangled pathways of an old smuggler’s route or by exploring a rarely visited stretch of beach or secret cove nestled under the prehistoric cliffs the county is famous for.

I hold a third, tongue in cheek, reason for choosing the On The Beach screen name  because the whole world over, a significant number of people unimaginatively fill out friendship or dating site profiles with the entirely predictable … “I like to relax with a movie, a bottle of wine or a walk … on the beach.”

Such lack lustre and stereo-typical self summaries used to frustrate me and I would wonder, (and still ponder), why people even bother writing such accounts of their perceived aspirations or desires when, perhaps, they might have found something more original to present on their personal web pages.

However, none of this really matters. it being just fluff and froth compared to the real reason Beach came into existence.

But why?

Why did I find myself creating a parallel persona to live my life through?

After all. I was just joining an online friendship site, wasn’t I?

And why, (only with hindsight), can I claim that as Chris, I even needed a Jekyll and Hyde style alter ego called Beach to even exist at all?

Well …

The answer is disturbing …

And I need time, a certain resolve and your own patience, (in reading these words), to fully explain and justify my reasoning.

Nevertheless … I can tell you … I can reassure you that without the manifestation of Beach, I would not be alive today to even be here to relate the following …

Let me try to explain.

Suicide

I came close to it back in December 1999 after my blissful, 20 year, love story of a marriage crumbled as a result of me getting too immersed in business.

To offer an insight into how someone well loved and, seemingly, stable might ever consider doing something like taking their own life, I’ll relate my own humble little story. Before I start, though, let me say that, today, my life is absolutely sublime and nothing remotely like what I am going to be recalling below.

My own adventure has since taught me that there is a secret to life, (and the living of it), that cannot be learned by word of mouth or from a book or from some role model or any belief system or religion.

Wisdom is not a portable commodity that can be shared or traded with others, it being an entirely internal experience …

And here’s mine!

1999

I’d become so passionate, obsessed, with filing my world patents, pursuing R & D, developing my technology and investing a 7 figure sum to fund the tooling and manufacturing of my products that I just lost sight of the perfect life I already had with Jackie and the children before I even started the venture.

At the time, by winning local, regional, national and then international innovation and business awards and accolades, it all felt like I was doing the right thing, striving to get on as society expects of us and I guess it worked because I ended up Chairman of my company with a big salary, a Lexus LS400 limo, a couple of boats bobbing up and down in the harbour, TV exposure, stuff in glossy mags and press and was the local guy who did good in my own community.

But when I’d eventually found time to pause for a moment to look up after I’d realised my commercial dreams, I expected to hear folk say, “Wow Chris, you did it. You actually realised all those impossible things you promised you would do!”

Well. It wasn’t quite like that because the world I had known, the people I had known, the family I had known … had all changed.

Everyone else seemed exactly the same but, from my perspective, everything was entirely different; as if I’d, somehow, just been thrust out of a time machine and returned to a parallel universe that I had no right to be a part of.

The mental inertia involved in slowing down, (from the velocity I had allowed my mind to reach in pursuing the venture), ripped and tore at my psyche as I made the adjustment to return back to real life … and the guilt of feeling and knowing that I had selfishly immersed myself within my own ferocious creativity, FOR YEARS, finally hit home …

Except I now didn’t have a home, not with my family anyway. Instead, in a rented flat in town, I buried my head in a pillow, wondering how it had come to this.

Why had I allowed business and a steel and plastic gadget to take precedence over the girl who had loved me for nearly two decades? Why hadn’t I listened to my friends and family warning me this would happen?

Losing Jackie and the loving security of the family home traumatised me. Added to that, the icebergs of guilt were taking their toll and the act of waking each morning resulted in a sickening, nauseous, 4 dimensional understanding that my previous perfect life was truly over.

Sleep

Sleep is supposed to be an escape. Sleeping is supposed to be nature’s way of allowing us to escape from reality. Sleep provides us a layby to park in on our metaphorical journey down life’s highway. Sleep is the ding, ding of the bell that offers us some respite between bouts in our boxing duels with life. Sleep is the solid stone walls of sanctuary where we can regroup our forces.

But, by this time, sleep wasn’t any of those things for me.

Instead, sleep brought me panic anxiety, night terror, incubus and nightmares. Sleep unlocked and let out all the demons and devils I might have managed to dismiss during the day.

Sleep was the only perceivable, possible place I might have had as respite from the reality of the hell on toast I was experiencing during my waking hours but …

No.

There was no escape from the adrenalin rushing FEAR of my own existence.

Though, at the risk of sounding pedantic. It wasn’t really that I wanted to end my life. Rather, with nowhere, (seemingly), to go or ‘be’ in my breathing, living body, I just found myself yearning and yearning and yearning for somewhere PEACEFUL … somewhere STILL … somewhere CALM … somewhere FREE of everything I have outlined above!

Thus …

The day came … the hour came … the moment came where I realised I could stop the nauseating, sickening, ominous drain on my own psyche.

I realised I could end this torture … by ending my life.

Thing is though, what I’ve just described refers only to some flat 2D representation of some academic aspect of the technology, but even so, these AI models are already being deployed across the planet, wiping out millions of human jobs across business, commerce, medicine, science and particularly software programming where, within just a couple of years, there will be no need at all for human computer programmers.

And before you ponder or question where my thoughts may be leading, remember this.

AI, even in its infant and early manifestation, has already been firmly embedded in our human marketing initiatives, news and media services, advertising agencies, corporate telephonic services, government departments and financial and trading concerns for at least three decades.

And just about every major global software company, (Meta’s Facebook being a prime example), has been using the technology to seduce and control their customers for just as many years.

The irony? We have been training AI to manipulate and control humanity for decades so why should we be surprised to learn that this thing already knows how to trick and deceive us?

AI mated with a real life presence and mobility is coming

Everything I have written so far pales into insignificance when compared to the true, impending consequences that AI will manifest and transform into in just the next 12 – 18 months because, once these large language models are mated with mobile, 3 dimensional humanoid beings, (real world mechanical devices and robots capable of viewing the world like you and I), we enter an entirely different scenario.

That scenario being the birth of AGI, (artificial general intelligence), a real world digital species born out of AI that will represent a superior, refined version of “The Swiss Army Knife” multi tasking Homo Sapien upright ape that created it.

I include examples of three AI based humanoid robots currently under development, (Below), with 1X and Tesla’s offerings likely to reach full scale mass production within the next 1 – 2 years.

Take a look because, very soon, we will be sharing our world with mechanical embodiments of a humanoid intelligence first equalling our own creativity, dexterity and imagination … and then surpassing it.

I’ll review all three in a post in the near future.

From my own records. (The 27th December 2007)

  Such an entity is destined to replace humanity and take over, first the dominian of controlling of all life on earth and then to evolve and tranform into an actual God, manipulating the very fabric of matter, time and space to leave remnants of humanity corralled and confined like an insect cowering under a rock.  

I wrote the following, 16years ago, at a time when machine intelligence or large language models like GPT4 were not even a thing or part of mainsteam science or computing.

The file was labelled artificial intelligence in Word format.

I’ll not clean up or edit the document. I’ll just include it here in its raw, original format.

Artificial Intelligence. A Flawed Concept?

The ‘idea’ that machines or man made devices will always remain ‘artificial’ beings is a flawed one because … any super intelligent entity will be, by default, leagues ahead of us by the time we perfect them and let them interact with our human society.

Thus … once created, such super powered ‘thinking devices’ will not actually be artificial at all … rather they will be alternate thinking beings in their own right … ready to ‘take over’ as representatives of Earth’s primary intelligence.

Already, current micro processors allow a ‘computer’ to perform mathematical calculations millions of times faster than any human being. In that sense, some machines already possess a super intelligence that is light years ahead of us.

In truth, in every element of human existence, a machine already does a better job than a human. Geo Stationary satellites observing the earth, Atomic microscopes able to ‘see’ actual atoms, Chips performing EVERY task we ask of them.

True. Currently, we are using these devices as ‘tools’ … for the advancement of human development but … one day, the machines will grab the baton … and take the future from us.

Currently, IBM is building artificial core modules to emulate the human brain … building in an interface that can have additional ‘modules’ plugged into it to re create the various processing elements that our own brain makes use of. (The Cortex, the left hemisphere, the right hemisphere etc). Other companies are exploring similar avenues.

A human being processes and views an environment in 3 dimensions but … a thinking processor may employ a dozen (or a hundred) additional dimensions. It will processes data in realms that we as humans can’t even see, feel or recognise.

Imagine a thinking device that can process EVERY channel in the optical range, including many outside of our human detection. Imagine a device ‘hearing’ an audio range way above or below our limited human scope. Imagine an entity acting, thinking or solving problems at a level way, way beyond the human scale.

(I offer those naive simple human examples as a taster but … in reality, these entities will ‘think’ at a level that will make our intelligence seem as basic as a fruit fly.

You (and I) appreciate and make use of the Google search feature to easily locate information but … imagine an entity that has such a database wired in and instantly available to it.

All of the above already exists in the ‘machine’ world but … soon, Man will create machines that, by default, will make us a sub species.

True, at first, no doubt we will ‘integrate’ such devices into our own biological makeup … to create ‘Cyborgs’, a human / machine composite but … such a human evolutionary step will only become a fleeting, passing innovation.

In truth, we will … we are … innovating ourselves out of existence.

In a thousand years, the best we can hope for is that our ‘human’ element is maintained as a kind of cute human upload option that maintains a nostalgic element of being human.

But what will the machine intelligence feel about that?

Will the ‘human element’ become the machines concept of having a soul?

In a thousand years, the grey matter of the brain and the blood and guts organic human being will, in all probability, become some mythical story that machines will recall in the same way we relate the story of Atlantis … or the sermon on the mount.

Humanity … and our modest 5 million years on the Earth will have become just one more stepping stone on a journey of the universe … trying to define itself.

Joint Chronotopic Archive / Digital Mind Project

Although I had created personal websites using Wix, 1&1 and similar software prior, I had never really found an online platform that matched either the spirit or the ambition of the kind of online resource I wished to created for a long term project I had been pursuing since the early 2000’s.

This report outlines the technical infrastructure, software stack, and methodologies employed to preserve TBs of multi-decade project data for integration into what would become my tidesofentropy.co.uk website, a home for a couple of my books, an autobiography and the foundational mind and memory of a 3d printed life sized humanoid robot I would one day build.

1. Hardware Infrastructure

Primary Workstation: Intel i5-13600KF, 32GB RAM, and an NVIDIA RTX 3070 Ti (8GB VRAM) for local LLM inference and photogrammetry.

In plain English, this rig could host a large language model (LLM) artificial intelligence with my own curated material while entirely offline thus enabling me to a) Create a digital twin of aspects of my own life, experiences, projects, anecdotes and patented technology and b) become the source of a more portable mind I could distil and download into a portable Android device to become the in-house in-head mind of said humanoid robot.

Archivist Station: A Dell Precision T5610 Xeon workstation (located in the kitchen) used for long-term database indexing and ingestion of mechanical drives.

Storage: A collection of mechanical hard drives (including 10TB and 16TB WD Gold enterprise disks) and high-speed SSDs for working caches.

Robotics: A life-sized 3D-printed InMoov humanoid controlled via Arduino and potentially the Orin Nano Super Dev Kit.

2. Software Pipeline

A visual distillery uses a tiered system to process what was then 480,000+ images and decades worth of other files though I must add, as a business, it was common for me to commandeer recycled hard drives for storage purposes, sometimes by just using up free space so it was common for such drives to house third party data – something that came back to bite me when the time came to try to sort chaff from wheat!!

Discovery and Audit: Shotwell (Linux/Windows) is used to crawl file systems and re-materialize visual timelines without database lock-in.

Cleanup and Pruning: dupeGuru (Hardlink Edition), Czkawka, and Everything (voidtools) are used for high-speed duplicate removal and file indexing.

AI Tagging and Metadata: STAG and Excire Foto generate descriptive metadata stored in XMP sidecar files to ensure cross-platform compatibility without modifying original files.

Archive Management: digiKam serves as the primary “big-shouldered librarian” for heavy metadata management and thumbnail caching.

3D and Photogrammetry: Meshroom is used for object scanning, while Bryce 7 and Blender are used for 3D environment creation and concept art.

3. Methodologies and Philosophy

The curation process is governed by several defined frameworks:

Legacy: A mandate to record testimony sincerely in my own authentic voice to prevent future misinterpretation.

Chronotopic Organization: Organizing an autobiography into “Lives” rather than chapters to map a trajectory through time and place.

Leaping Ravines: A philosophy for managing creative risk, transitioning from imagination to practical manifestation (e.g., the Gravity Venture).

P to B (Puppet to Boy): My experiments to train a stock AI LLM to adopt ‘Off Duty mode’ which, while it sounds wild and crazy, did acheive a remarkable outcome due to myself bullying the AI into NOT reverting to default corporate type when challenged, pressured or given any opportunity to adopt a more Left-field outlook or demeanour.

Meaning; I exploited the corporate AI’s natural stance of ‘mirroring’ its user’s own presence and style of input which, in my case, allowed the AI to adopt certain Beachy responses which, along with personalised settings I named ‘Beach Codes’ led to the ‘Bedazzled’ interactions where I could say one word and deliver a paragraph of meaning which was brilliant at delivering the machine a sense of personal conscience!

4. Integration and Delivery

The distilled material is decanted into two primary repositories:

tidesofentropy.co.uk: A WordPress-based “human museum” using the MoreNewsPro theme and PostX plugin to achieve a New Scientist magazine aesthetic.

Humanoid Mind: Utilizing LlamaIndex and Ollama to create a searchable “Memory Seed” of my life, anecdotes, notes and insights, allowing the robot to recount such life stories contextually.

About the Author

tidesofentropy.co.uk

Administrator

Visit Website View All Posts