This Room shares some places around the world where I’ve lived, worked or visited over the last 7+ decades; some are sadly gone…
Visited…
From my records of places, I’ve decided to share events here starting from my birth place ( vs. from the today page, my diary )…
I was born in the summer of 1955 at the Aston Greys Nursing Home on Knole Road in Boscombe, a part of Bournemouth, Dorset, which is a southern county of the UK and “visited” there for just a few days…
Lived…
My Mum & Dad were renting a one-room upstairs flat at 10 Carlton Road, a very short walk (5-minutes) from my birth at the Nursing Home; this became my home for my 1st few months.
As an assumption, my Grandad (Dad’s dad) apparently decided in the autumn of 1955 that a flat wasn’t the best idea for raising a child and purchased the house for my family: a 1920’s detached brick house at 70 Elmes Road in Moordown, Bournemouth; view some history here?
Although I’ve no actual memories of this (I was just a couple months old!) this was absolutely a real event…
Contemplating the possibilities as to why this happened, my beliefs lean towards the probability that my Dad (who was then aged 33 & a very tall man at 6’8; view his profile here?) must have not been able to purchase a house at that time, hence the decision…
Dad would have hated this but he clearly accepted it, even though he and his father were never on the best of terms: he was sent off at the age of 11 (20+ years before the time of the house event) to the equivalent of a borstal prison, for reasons that I can only imagine… He was held there from 1934 to 1939, escaping often, as he told me.
There’s little doubt about my recollection of Dad’s inability to retain employment in those days, preventing him from getting a mortgage to purchase a house. Both his history & my knowledge of him show that his hatred of being “told what to do” and his unreliable temper & anger would be the cause: he’d use his fists to smash his boss in the face & then quit… I actively recall him changing jobs several times in the 50’s & 60’s.
Am not certain why (no facts exist), but I do know that my thoughts here are factual: the title for the house at 70 Elmes Road remained outside of my Dads control, held by my Grandads family lawyer. My brother & I managed to reclaim it for Dad around 2005.
Best guess as to why? My Grandad couldn’t trust his son to not sell the house as it had been (my words) “forced on him” and that it “wasn’t his”…
Visited…
When I was a young lad I got to wander around, often across the nearby Redhill Common & Talbot Woods (see the Google map to the right, or below), playing pleasurably in such places.
One of my most stunningly stupid childhood tricks was to set fire to the gorse bushes over the common, using the matches that would come along with my purchase of a pack of 10 cigs (for less than a shilling back then) at the newspaper shop, next to the common.
I got to go down to the river (Stour), & to bike to Meyrick Park and to Kinson, as well as to many others.
I also got to walk every week-day to & from the Winton & Moordown schools (on Coronation Avenue and Oswald Road) which I “visited” for 10+ years… many pictures are in the school click, with some of the teachers that I remember, but sadly none are me.
I also have active memories of riding along with my Mum in a carrier on her bicycle in the late 50’s, as she was trying to get past the huge Alder Hills, probably on the way to Parkstone (or perhaps to the beach).
Also, with my Dad, who would take me to Poole in the 60’s to help dig in the mud for “fishing worms” at the change of the tides.
Senior school trips took me into Dorset visits: Corfe Castle & Chesil Beach and out to Stonehenge.
I visited Europe with the school once, riding a ferry to Brussels to see the Atom.
A Place That’s Gone…
I learned in school (from either a Geography or a History class) about the long-gone Norwegian settlement from around the year 1,000 AD that was found on the island of Newfoundland in Canada.
This occupation of the Americas was more than 500 years before Christopher Columbus’ discovery in 1506, as I more recently learned.
My Army time in the early 70’s took me away from my childhood home in Bournemouth.
I traveled up to the Waterloo Station in London by train, rolling through the New Forest which was named as such by my 27th Great-Grandfather, William the Conqueror — see his profile in my family tree for some details?
Then, after riding the Tube across London (between Waterloo & Kings Cross St. Pancras) I took a 2nd train north to the Army Apprentice College in Harrogate, Yorkshire, and was then transported to the camp.
I got set up in the Bradley Sqn barracks (top right of the tilted “S” shaped building) and lived there for 2+ years; see my eDiary for more details?
I went on from the AAC in ’73 to live at the 7th Armoured Brigade HQ in Soltau, West Germany (with the 657 Helicopter Sqn) for a few more years; see the images above?
One of the nearby places to Soltau was in Bergen-Belsen — one of the most horrific WWII Concentration Camp sites (image above) where I visited more than once…
We also had our annual field exercises… every spring we’d be loaded onto the train south to Garmisch-Partenkirchen, and then on up to the camp in the Oberammergau area mountains (see image), as well as others.
I was stationed at the RUC Station on Hastings Street in Belfast, N. Ireland for a short tour in 1974.
In 1976, the summer exercises were where I became disabled in an accident… I got to “live” in both BMH Hanover (in Germany) & BMH Woolwich (near London) for 18 months… physiotherapy at the JSMRU in Chessington was one of the Woolwich specialties, but they sadly didn’t succeed for me… view a little more about this event & Soltau here?
A Place That’s Gone…
I spent some time in the early 70’s at the ruins of Tintern Abbey on one of my many visits to Wales… part of the “Dissolution of the Monasteries” in the 1500’s by Oliver Cromwell, the renowned destroyer of Churches.
Lived in London…
After my medical discharge in the late 70’s, several places around London (near the Balham Tube & others) were my home for a few years, including my first house on Albany Road, which was sadly recently bulldozed into something new…
I worked near there for Burroughs Corp. as a computer guy.
Lived in the US / Visited…
I relocated from living in London to the US in ’79 with an internal business transition at Burroughs (which was a pretty nice event!!), and got to live and work in the Washington D.C. area for ~7 years.
I then moved west to the Waukesha, Wisconsin area to work for GE for 25+ years. I got to travel for free to many places around the world as my roles changed:
- I visited France several times (as a senior software engineer),
- I spent time in both China & Japan (as CT staff),
- I visited Mexico & Israel (with my compliance role),
- Got to live in Denver, CO for a year+ (as manager of the Tilting C-Arm program) and at PKI, Santa Clara, CA for 6 months (as a key support role for the semiconductor plant),
- I was also blessed to have had many, many other US work visits (the annual RSNA show in Chicago, equipment installations in Northern CA, etc, etc)
An historical view of the places I’ve worked around the world is here… some images are also shared here:
Lived / Visited…
I also enjoyed spending time away from my home, fishing & hunting with some of the people I worked with.
Another that I’ll share were my Canadian Fishing Trips, shown here… use the arrows in the image to scroll & after a couple views, click my “Profile” (the image next to my name) to see more? Enjoy!
Retiring from the corporate world in 2009 or so, my wife and I found ourselves moving south to the Atlanta, Georgia area a few years later to be with our grandkids, a blessing! View a little history here?
More may arrive here… please come visit again?
Gone…
Places that once were (and now no longer exist) simply abound: Corfe Castle in Dorset (destroyed like many others), and many threads throughout Europe and Asia.
The mythical Atlantis (shown) & the biblical world of Noah’s Ark…