I was born on 12 January 1981 in South Wales, near the Welsh capital of Cardiff, but my parents moved to London when I was about nine months old so I spent what intelligent types call ‘my formative years’ (but what I call ‘the bit I can’t remember very well’) here. We lived in Harrow Weald - not the ‘posh’ part of Harrow where the school is but in the slightly dodgier end where the graffiti artists and drunks used to hang out. Family outings to the parks of London, a trip to St Paul’s Cathedral, feeling very small and insignificant on the tube as a toddler, and standing next to Big Ben at midday near the time of Andrew and Fergie’s wedding getting temporarily deafened by twelve very loud dongs are about the only things I can recall about living in London. Couldn’t live there now tho….far too big!!

Sometime around May 1989, I was taken out of school one morning, transported back to South Wales, having lost the fight to take my favourite little armchair with me, and so began the next phase of my life and the belated development of my Welshness. After a rather forgettable time in primary school, I attended St Cenydd Comprehensive School, which I absolutely loved and got involved in everything, including the school production of ‘Oliver!’, in which, I am honoured to say, I played a drunken prostitute, and played it very well for a 14 year old I thought! I got on well with most of my teachers and enjoyed most lessons but my favourite subject was history and my favourite teachers were in the history department. By the time my friends and I had reached sixth form we were fetching fish and chips and spending most lunchtimes in their classrooms chatting. I think they have all left now and I hope they’re doing ok wherever they are.

After secondary school came university, not so much to gain a degree but more to leave home and have some fun, which I did at Exeter in huge amounts! I was in halls of residence with some really nice people (you can see some of their websites on my Friends page), and I have lived with varying numbers of them at some point every year since graduation in 2002. I did pretty well in my History degree, getting an Upper Second with Honours, but it is the non-academic life that I will always look back on with the fondest memories. Nights out at the Imperial , bowling, the termly meal out, the Jabulani Gospel Choir - the list goes on! The University’s official slogan is that it is “Probably the best university in the world” - whilst it may be pushing it somewhat to call it that now, it certainly was back then, and I shall always be glad that I chose to come here

After graduation I decided to stay in Exeter as most of my friends were doing the same and I didn’t really want to leave it all behind. Having worked for Birthdays and MVC during Christmas vacations whilst at uni, my first job on leaving was as a campsite courier for Canvas Holidays, a fantastically varied and challenging job that I had also done the previous summer and loved it so much that I returned for a second helping. The first time I worked for Canvas took me to Burgundy and the Jura, whilst the second led to me spending three very enjoyable months in Brittany, one of my favourite regions of France. I worked in Marks and Spencer as a Beauty Adviser the following Christmas, and then got a job as Pensions Administrator working for Friends Provident, where the work was boring, a pup was a benefit claim form (’tis a strange world), but the people were lovely, and my boss there remains the best one I have had to date - Cheers Steve. After a little under 18 months at FP, with far more pensions knowledge than I care to mention under my belt (alas none of it had managed to seep into my brain) I started my current job at Exeter University, working in their Distance Learning Department as a web designer.

Six months in, everything went pete tong as the University powers that be initiated a series of departmental restructures and closures for financial reasons (when is it anything else?) and my department was selected as being in need of a serious overhaul. As things stand at the moment, I am not being redeployed or given voluntary severance pay, but am to stay where I am to see what happens.

To be continued……