Archive for December 2021
Out of the Camp Ch. 19 – Soviets in London
The first couple of years back in London were largely Soviet influenced and drew us into a strange world of intrigue and suspicion-laden anxiety. During the course of her Russian studies at Hammersmith College, Mary learned of an exchange programme that had existed for some years between the college (now a campus of the University…
Read MoreOut of the Camp Ch. 18 – Exponential Growth
Then there was the time that we were hired by Construcciones Maritimas Mexicanas (CMM) to maintain and operate communications on two construction barges on a pipe-laying operation for Pemex, the Mexican State Oil Company, in the Bay of Campeche, Gulf of Mexico. The bank refused to factor invoices on this client because of the elevated…
Read MoreOut of the Camp Ch. 17 – Worlds & Oysters!
With all this stuff swirling around in my head after so many years it’s sometimes difficult to remember the order of events but I do know that our daughter was born before we left MacDuff. I was reminded recently that when Mary went to Aberdeen Royal Infirmary to have the baby, a dear friend in…
Read MoreOut of the Camp Ch. 16 – Reinvention
The bank weren’t too impressed with our filching the £3,500 profit from the Macduff house to give to the families of our new employees in the North Sea. Of course, the manager was quite correct in pointing out that we ought to have consulted them first since we had agreed that that money would be…
Read MoreOut of the Camp Ch. 15 – Ekofisk
We received a couple of calls from Tape Recorder Spares in London asking when we might be placing another order for the German antennas. After all these years, I can’t honestly remember what I told them, but they knew something was up. I don’t know to this day if they ever found out about the…
Read MoreOut of the Camp Ch. 14 – The Seahawk
I didn’t mention earlier that the lady complaining about muddy boots on her carpet was one of Murray Mackie’s customers and he’d certainly made his feelings clear when he heard about this. Mrs. Fleet had taken his call one day while I was out and had passed on the message later that evening. She said,…
Read MoreOut of the Camp Ch. 13 – Scrapyard Mentor
Tommy, my landlord, told me one day that it was good that I was starting a business before I was 30, because as you get older it gets harder. You take on responsibilities and that leads to you being less flexible. He told me, “You just watch, now that you’ve started and once you become…
Read MoreOut of the Camp Ch. 12 – Peterhead
Tommy Chalmers was the local scrap metal dealer in Peterhead and I met him through a staff member at the TV store, W.D. Allen, who told me that Tommy owned a number of old buildings in the town and he might be able to rent me something to run the business from. It took me…
Read MoreOut of the Camp Ch. 11 – Go North Young Man
It didn’t seem possible that almost three years could have passed since our wedding and that our second son was almost one, when one morning in early 1974 I had an installation assignment in Great Cumberland Place, literally a stone’s throw from the famous London landmark of Marble Arch, at the north east corner of…
Read MoreOut of the Camp Ch. 10 – The Big Time, Not!
I think that you might have missed the ‘Old Grey Whistle Test’ BBC TV link in the last post as it’s a bit buried in the Listen Facebook page and might be a bit difficult to find. So here’s the link again… https://fb.watch/2RYhroCcCz/ Well anyway, the frenetic activity continued for two or three more weeks…
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