When I left school at 15 with no academic qualifications, I had no real idea what I wanted to do.
You don’t as kids, do you?
Most of my friends were either going to be tradesmen or mechanics but I wanted to see a bit more of the world so I applied to join the Royal Navy. They wouldn’t take me until I was 15 and three quarters though so for the first few months, after leaving formal education, I worked on a local farm, milking the cows and feeding the livestock.
I joined the Royal Navy as an aircraft engineer. There was a lot of training but it was worth it as I was able to visit several countries on a couple of aircraft carriers, namely The Ark Royal and The Hermes.
I left the Royal Navy when I was 24 years old and immediately went to work in Oman, still as an aircraft engineer, but this time as a civilian.
It was great not to have all the rules and regulations that had dictated my life for the previous 8 years, and because most of my colleagues were my age, there was plenty of opportunity for sports like football, squash, windsurfing, diving, etc., on my time off.
My knees know about it now though!
The problem with that contract was I was away from my wife Jean for 17 weeks and only home for 3weeks. Fortunately, she was working and had lots of friends, but it wasn’t ideal.
Eventually, I got a married accompanied job in Brunei, where I got the bug to fly helicopters. I didn’t want to fix them…I wanted to be in the pilot’s seat.
The contract was for three years, so we saved up as much as we could in that time and then, instead of renewing the contract, we left for the USA where I went to a flying school, studied hard, took lots of training, and got my pilot’s licence.
That was in 1983, but I had to wait another 14 years to actually get a job as a pilot, though.
The thing was, I couldn’t fly in the UK which is where I’m from because the licence wasn’t valid here, and I couldn’t fly in the USA because I didn’t have a green card.
I was pretty disappointed as you can imagine, but knew I could do it, so I continued fixing, rather than flying helicopters.
It was a chance conversation in Qatar that kick started my pilot career, and although I had to jump through even more hoops and take a few financial risks, my dream was too great to ignore.
Plus, I’d spent a fortune in getting my qualifications so I didn’t want to waste it.
Mostly, I flew offshore, transporting supplies and personnel to and from oil rigs for what was at the time the biggest helicopter company in the world, but sadly most of their contracts finished when the price of oil plummeted and oil companies reduced production.
It meant there were fewer flying opportunities available and companies began to undercut each other to get what few contracts remained. Whilst the company I worked for had a great reputation as far as safety was concerned, it wasn’t the cheapest, so the writing was on the wall for it to fold.
I had hoped to continue flying until I was 65 years old, but sadly I, like everyone else, was laid off in 2020, when I was 63 years old..
Jean was pleased though. For most of our married life since leaving the Royal Navy, I’d been in one country and she’d been in the UK with our two sons.
That was hard, especially as our youngest son has autism, and whilst a lot is known about the disability now, very few people were aware of it when he was first diagnosed.
Ironically, his birthday is on what is now known as National Autism Awareness Day!
Jean has actually written a few books about him and if you want to read her first, which will tell you all about him as a child, check out I’m Not Naughty, I’m Autistic – Jodi’s Journey. She’s published it and others in paperback, kindle and audio.
The thing is, I wasn’t ready to retire, either physically, mentally or financially, so I sought something to do.
I was either too qualified or not qualified enough to get most of the jobs I applied for and those I did get an interview for were led by fresh faced kids young enough to be my sons.
It was discouraging, but eventually, I got a job as a part-time maintenance man at a local brain injury unit.
It gave me something to do and my colleagues were very nice, it didn’t stretch my brain cells very much.
Also, I found it really frustrating that a lot of jobs I could have done, I wasn’t able to do because of rules and regulations about having to employ specific outside tradesmen, which in many cases was completely crazy.
But that’s another story!
I began to look around for something else to do, and that’s when I discovered Affiliate Marketing.
It opened up a whole new world for me … and the rest, as they say, is history!
Now, I am on Facebook, YouTube, TikTok and have a couple of websites www.BreakingTheZero.com and www.WhatIsaMII.com
So now, instead of being in the pilot’s seat of a helicopter, I’m captain of my own business and driving a mouse!