Age 45 to 57 ...Play
After Becky moved on, and I found myself living alone, I withdrew a little from social activity. However, one evening, when a TR Register club night as due to be held, I had a phone call from one of the members who simply said that they hadn't seen me for a while, and was I going to be at the club night that night. That one call had me back full involved with the TR Register, and probably led to the best social time of my entire life. I don't think I missed another club night for many years after that.
I had already met Sue (see Sue>), and I introduced her to all my TR Register friends. There were many really good people - car owners and their wives and partners - out to have an enjoyable social life, with the cars as a common link between us all.
In about 1997, I was elected as the Group Leader of the Kent Group of the TR Register. This was an unpaid role, with the task of meeting new members, organising events, writing reports for the club magazine, and generally keeping tabs on the group. Kent was one of the largest local groups in the TR Register, and during my time as group leader, grew to cater for around 400 members across the county. In the early days under my leadership, the group had a fairly low-profile nationally. I set-out to do something about this - I wanted Kent to be the group that everyone knew about. I achieved this over time by increasing the number of active members, writing reports and articles for the national club magazine, creating and writing a local newsletter, holding extra club nights - at three different venues for a while - and organising large events that were advertised nationally. I also set-up a 'twinning' arrangement with a TR Group in the Netherlands, so we then had an international element to our local group. In honour of my efforts at Kent Group, during my leadership, Kent won the prestigious Wheelspinner Award - presented to the most successful local group in the UK, and I was presented with a rarely-awarded 'Gold Award' for my personal involvement with the group. I was even offered a place on the National Committee of the TR Register, but declined it, as I would not have had the time to do the role justice. I continued to be fully active with the TR Register until planning for our 'new life' in Scotland took over all of my time.
Cars aside, my other leading interest developing during this time in my life was the use of computers. The devices were becoming cheaper and more widely used in schools, and because of my interest and knowledge, I became the computer 'guru' at Grange Park School. Here, I purchased the first computer to be used in the school - an HP model I am sure. I don't recall the precise chronology - but I believe we did not have an internet connection right away, and when we did - it would have been achingly-slow dial-up. No high speed broadband in those days! Soon, though, the value of the school computer was fully released, and I was instrumental in buying and setting-up many systems both within the school and also for the Head Teacher and Head of the Governors! By about 2002, I was in charge of the school's network with linked computers in every classroom, plus I had my own computer suite with a computer station for each pupil and an interactive whiteboard for teaching.
At home - my interest in and use of the computer also developed, and I very much enjoyed using some of my artistic ability in website design. I bought a copy of Adobe's Dreamweaver software - expensive(!) - and taught myself how to use it. I created websites for myself - for the new holiday cottage business we were beginning to get ourselves into - and for my school. I also started a tiny website-design business and created websites for a number of small commercial enterprises.