An eDiary of Some Key Things in Don's Life
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I regularly updated my eDiary until the creation of FaceBook's 2011 "eHistory" feature, whereupon I stopped… my account then sadly crashed out while I was updating my profile [ :( ] in 2019 & I had to drill some of the "lost years" to get them back! You might consider visiting my profile page that shares a little more info about me vs. this eDiary?

So… my eDiary is organized into decade pages, each being year-by-year with months from Jan to Dec; click on a different section to visit that decade? Main page | 2010’s | 2000’s | 80's-90's | 70's (this page) | 50's-60's… for an "historical" view, do start at the very end of my eDiary & scroll up to read backwards in time? Also, view the page full-screen? Have fun, regardless ;)

The end of the 70’s was a Really Interesting Year!

After my enjoyable day- and night-shifts working with the Burroughs team during that year (1979), I was lucky enough to have been sent across the pond in October for a 6-week training session at their HQ near Philly… I ran into Ms. T there, who sadly (at that time) caused me to change my entire life: I moved to the US for the birth of my son in 1980

As I returned home from the trip, our December fiasco caused me to decide that I had to move out to a flat, at 33a Goldsmith Road in Friern Barnet, London N.11… six months later (in July, 1980) I moved to the Washington, DC area, continuing to do exactly the same things with the large computers in the basement of the HQ of the World Bank as I had been doing in London, yet with a 1/3rd pay hike!

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1978…My 1st year Outside of the Army

In March of 1978, I graduated from the CDI (below) and we moved from our middle-floor flat at 103 Central Hill, West (Upper) Norwood to an upstairs flat at 89 Fairfax Road in Haringey, London N8… this move facilitated my drive to work for the rest of the year at the Midland Bank HQ in Staples Corner, London

In August we brought and moved into our 1st house, an end-row terrace at 19 Albany Road, Upper Edmonton, London N18, now destroyed

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1977, My Major Transition Year…

After my January, ’77 BMH Hanover surgery, Jane & I left our Soltau home (at Amselweg 4, 29614 Soltau, W. Germany -- a 4th-floor flat) crossing the English Channel in the Husky via a ferry to Eastleigh, Hampshire where we stayed at Jane’s parent’s house for a couple months… I spent time in the hospital-BMH Greenwich, Royal Herbert Hospital, in Greenwich, London, and we got to move into an MQ on Balham High Road (a 5th-floor flat) where I spent the summer at the JSMRU (Joint Services Military Rehabilitation Unit) in Chessington for with more in-depth physiotherapy of my damaged elbows and wrists (which today, July, 2023 are ouchy!!), including building a table and floating my arms in the pool; I ended up being medically discharged, with a life-long disability pension

Jane & I spent ~3 months in a small upstairs room at Jane's parents' house in Eastleigh while I drove the Husky up to London & back every few days

On October 10, 1977 at the Catterick Garrison, I received my medical military discharge after the Army had spent 18 months attempting to repair my elbows; was tagged at 30% disabled with their failure. The Army then granted me my 2nd life-changing event: a 6-month period of Government-funded retraining. I learned to become a mainframe computer field engineer at the Control Data Institute (77 Wells St, London) between September 26, 1977 & March 31, 1978. Those "innate intuitive technical skills" allowed me to graduate with a certificate that shows all aspects of the learning as straight-A's, at the top of my class… See some background?

We moved out of my military MQ flat into a middle-floor flat at 103 Central Hill, West (Upper) Norwood, London S.E.19 as I was discharged in October of 1977… this began my new life with computers, which lasted for multiple decades in & around London, in America and around the world

Honours This new life started out for me with six months of all-day classes in a government-sponsored retraining program at the CDI Computer HW/SW Training school at 77-79 Wells Street, Fitzrovia, London W1T 3QJ where I graduated on March 31st of 1978 with honours… click to view?




While the school departed from that location a number of years ago, there were several occasions that I recall where lunch was held at a nearby bar on Oxford Street, as well as learning all sorts of new things!

I was then hired into the Burroughs Corporation where they held physically enormous machines in the basement of the Midland Bank HQ in North London after an interview with Tim Bowler and others The machines did “batch processing” for banking & financial transactions, requiring many square feet of controlled & conditioned space with dozens of 6-foot tall cabinets & hundreds of connecting cables!

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1976, My Most Disastrous Year Ever

We purchased our 1st car in May of 1976, a Hillman Husky; Jane's income at the barracks made it available… it stayed with me until 1980 when I departed for America

Sadly, my wonderful world in the Army (below) ended in August, 1976…

We were out in the field for our annual international military Summer Sales exercise, playing soldiers "at war"… I was driving my APC432 (the petrol version, a rebro station at that time) with Gary Coude as the commander in the woods near Stadtverwaltung in Bad Salzdetfurth, Germany, about 50km SE of Hanover

I ended up taking an inadvertent swan-dive from the top of our APC as I tried to fix the engine overheating, which trashed both of my arms by breaking my elbows & my wrists… this event changed the rest of my natural-born life

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The mid-70's in Soltau

In 1973 I moved on from Harrogate (below) to stay in Soltau, West Germany for 3+ years, where I signed 18+ years of my life away to the Army…

I was also blessed by many events…I learned to drive (my 1st actual driving time!) in an Army Landrover as well as (compliments of Lofty Nevols, RIP) learning to "pull the sticks" in an APC439 (also see the FV432?)

There were many field maneuvers for me… on February 17th in 1974 we were at Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany — we'd mount up on a train to go South to a place near this for a week or so… Marching up & down the mountains (chasing out our early morning hangovers) was pretty challenging!

The snap to the left Fun is of Kevin Rankin (“Jock”), me & Ray Spence up at 5,000 feet

Soltau I was snapped (right) with some Army mates — part of training that we were providing for an upcoming active tour by acting as IRA suspects! I'm on the left, next is Frank Jackson, then Dave Cooke, then ???, Kim Nott, Johnno & Ginge (from "dahn sarf")
                 Muchas gracias for Dave's advice!

My active service time was in Northern Ireland as a comms guy with the Kings Own Royal Border Regiment, who were stationed at the RUC barracks on Hasting Street in Belfast, Ireland from Dec-74 to Apr-75. Some scary times with frequent nights on guard duty and escort duty riding shotgun (yeah, the guy they'd shoot 1st…) on the Landrover with dispatches up to the Belfast HQ — just lucky, I guess…

Jane & I were married in '75 at her church in Eastleigh, Hampshire Outside of the church (click for names?)

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My early 1970's at Harrogate

Moving on from my childhood (late 1960’s) to Tuesday, December 15th, 1970 when my Dad took me across town in his car at the young age of 15 to the British Army Recruitment Office at 244 Holdenhurst Rd in Bournemouth (which is just 10 minutes from my childhood home at 70 Elmes Rd) and had me sign up for the Army…

This was after his many futile attempts to keep me off of the road “to become a criminal," with an event (not shared here…) being his final choice: "Let's have someone else give it a try as I clearly can't influence him enough…" (I suspect not actually spoken to me, but surely true enough)

As I left my home for my stint in the Army on Friday, January 15th, 1971, I traveled with a small suitcase up to Harrogate, Yorkshire by train. A perspective of the ride is embedded here; click & scroll down to view? After being transported out from the station to the AAC barracks at Penny Pot Lane, I was immediately trimmed with a military haircut & provisioned with my new uniform, which had my Army DMS boots . (that I had to learn to shine; I didn't get my pair of hob-nail boots until I was in Soltau), my beret with a Jimmy . (one of which I still have),
my battle-dress shirts / jumper / underwear / trousers / belt . (I still have one of these too!) and ankle putties, as well as my full dress uniform with the dress hat & dress belt (see my graduation image below), along with (I seem to recall) a field water bottle, mug & KFS, all of which were loaded on top of my blankets / sheets / pillows to haul up to the locker in my 2nd-floor room at Troop B of Bradley Squadron, where I was stationed at the Army Apprentices College (memories/pictures etc)… a scary few days, where I can actually recall tears on occasion as I tried to get to sleep :(

I was a rookie there for 2+ years, learning to be a Telegraphist (a communications op), with so many memorial things… my every-day name changed around this time from my childhood name of "Jamie" to who I am now, "Don". After I was there for a while, Mum established a phone protocol for a series of Saturday calls around September, 1971. At a specific phone of the 3 phone booths that were by the churches, I'd ring up 70 Elmes around lunchtime, & hang up after letting it ring 3 times… it never failed (to my recollection) to get a call-back, reducing my expenses!

I learned to march in a parade and was (later) the guy who hit the big bass-drum in the marching band (see the AAC link, above) where I once slowed the march down, infuriating the band-master sergeant! I learned to respect the RSM & to salute the Ruperts; I loved learning how to correctly load & shoot (and respect) the weapons: a standard issue 7.62mm SLR rifle (accurately & consistently hitting the distant target!), a 9mm SMG . a 9mm pistol . & the heavy machine gun .

I got to do the "dah-dit-dah-dit dah-dah-dit-dah" thing (CQ) & went out to the field many times with the Ecce troop: on one of my trips down to Cornwall in 1972, I was sitting in the woods expecting the para's… the active enemy (chasing our D-10 site) captured me on guard!

I also learned to type into that 50-cycles/second teleprinter (I was faster than it was!); I got to play on the rugby team as tight-head prop; I did that (aaargh!) 48-hour Lyke-Wake walk across the Yorkshire Moors & had to take those horrible cross-country runs; I also recall having those massive PT sergeants screaming in my ear that I "wasn't trying hard enough with those damned reverse curls!!!" …<eSigh> so many memories from my early days!

I was promoted in October, 1972 to the rank of Apprentice Lance-corporal in the A-Troop of Bradley Sqn & again in January, 1973 to Apprentice Corporal (see my stripes in the picture below?), where I then had the A-Troop Corporal's Bunk for a term

Harrogate I became famous (for 15 minutes) at my AAC graduation in April of 1973, receiving High Honors, recognized in a Bournemouth Echo article as receiving four scholarly achievement awards… something not done before or since!
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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The End of the 70's…

Well, that's about it for the 70’s section of my eDiary; scroll back up or go to the different decades here? You could also go to my Bio summary page, the profile page that I created a few years ago, my family tree profile or visit me on FaceBook where you can scroll down to view my events year-by-year.

I do expect certain parts of this website to improve and/or change as I tag more year-by-year info or clarify some of the threads… watch this space! Please also visit my privacy page to be aware of some legal stuff?

As a final thought, view some snaps of me & my family in my older album? Enjoy!! ;)

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