After leaving Waiheke Island and spending a couple of years in and around Auckland and occasional trips to Aus, thought I would ‘pop’ over to the UK for a look. And that was the plan, just a look. In the event, March 1990 was the start of what became a long stay in the UK. A few days after I arrived, I went along to a recruitment company open day. The MD hired me to start the next day as his business integration and training manager. This was Vernon Recruitment and entailed a lot of contracts at the likes of Emap, IPC, Maxwells, Point Marketing and Hamfield - a lot of magazine publishing, IT evaluation and development, and IT improvements for new creative design systems.
A lot of this work put me in good stead with publishing and IT in the UK. After being recommended for a short-term contract at William Reed, I was asked to join the permanent staff. Even though I was 7 years at Reed, no two 18 months were the same. With acquisitions, company growth, and new technology and systems, my interest never waned. I was lucky to be one of the first to implement both Apple’s X Server and a number of pre-press and OPI servers.
Through some work contacts I met my wife and we have two children. Amber is late teens and Tommy is mid teens. Melanie also worked in graphics and small pre-press, so we had significant understanding of each other’s pressures. Both kids are very personable, but not brain boxes. They may both go to university, although I don’t see any Oxford scholarship on the horizon.
After Reed I spent a while at Citrus, a marketing agency and contract publisher, putting together a management plan prior to a merger. Followed by some time with the DTI (Dept of Trade and Industry), SEMTA (Scientific, Engineering & Mathematical Trade Organisation) and UFI (University for Industry). We were creating a national pilot website for training and continuous education, in conjunction with LearnDirect (the national training and further education body).
In all cases I was, in effect, head-hunted. Which happened again with the following move to Sky, working in the creative services division – 140 designers, including on-air, off-air, set design, print and advertising. I was there for 3 years, again building departments and systems to accommodate new business and technology requirements. I was next grabbed for Real Digital International, a multi-million pound start-up moving into high-end digital print, database marketing and bespoke personalisation.
Over the years I have also been lucky to travel and work in different countries for different periods, sometimes for trade shows, other times for secondments. Visits have included the States, Moscow, Denmark, France, Belgium, Spain and Italy. Oh, and Scotland!
The move to Devon was inspired by the desire to move to a more positive environment for the kids, as well as get away from the rat-race. Greater London’s problems now stretch for many miles in all directions, so Oxfordshire, Surrey, Kent and even Sussex are changing dramatically into multi-racial but separatist communities. There are now single-religion schools all over the place and the cultural integration is non-existent in many towns and neighbourhoods. We know of people who had to leave their homes and schools when they became virtually the only white Christians. Unlike Aus or Canada or the States, where many races can live harmoniously together, the UK is increasingly not united. When in Canada a couple of years ago I was very impressed with how most people were Canadian first, and other allegiances second. We met Polish and Chinese and Russian people, who were very proud of their traditions, but that always came second to Canadian pride.
Similarly in Moscow, the Russians from the west, 6 foot and speaking a couple of Scandinavian languages, were just as ‘Russian’ as the 5 ft 9 swarthies from the south and speaking Italian, and just as Russian as the 5 ft 3 eastern folk. All mingling together in fantastic cities, flowering after the demise of the communist regime. There are all these stories about the Russian economy being in the hands of the few, but that is no different to the UK where 85% of the wealth of the nation is held by 15% of the population.
In the last 10 years, the average UK house price has gone up 215% and now requires 40% of the average wage to service it (compared to 20% just 10 years ago). And in most towns the average house price is 10 times the average wage. Which means most young people cannot afford to buy, as the general rule is a mortgage can be 3.5 times your earnings. So even if both partners are working, they may not reach the required income. A potential plus, however, is you can climb the property ladder in the UK, so when you sell and move to another country to retire the living can be easy.
Keeping in touch has been a rather strange thing for me, and I can’t quite explain it. In large part, the rat-race that is the UK crept up on me and I didn’t realise I was working and/or commuting many hours each day, just to keep up. And that another year would slip by with me thinking I would have some time for personal interests and correspondence. So I have occasionally searched the web, but then another few months slips by before I follow up. For which I apologise to everyone, and promise much better effort now I am in sunny Devon.
For example, Colin Wilson moved to France and I lost touch with him, and also Ngila Dickson (who went on to great things with Xena and Hercules and LOTR).
My love of music has continued through the years and that is one reason for being involved in Art In Devon. Plus a couple of other web sites. Plus a couple of local networks and projects. For example:
http://www.clik4music.com/
http://www.art-in-devon.co.uk/
http://www.spectralworkshop.tv/
