I'm Head of Information Technology for the Colchester based charity LEPRA (The British Leprosy Relief Association) which was the charity adopted by the BBC Children's television program Blue Peter for their 1997 Bring & Buy appeal. Our aim as a charity is to provide health care and education for people with the disease of leprosy, an illness that mainly affects people in the poorer regions of the world and is especially a problem in India & Brazil.
Colchester Castle & the
beautiful Castle Park in the Town Centre.
To learn more about Colchester, read A brief guide to Colchester
I've worked in IT since about 1984 when I was lucky enough to be taken on as a trainee computer operator by a company called Macarthy Medical Ltd, whose business was wholesale distribution to the pharmaceutical industry). The company is alas no more, having been taken over by another pharmaceutical distributor in about 1992. During my time at Macarthy's I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to be trained as a programmer and later progressed to analyst programmer using COBOL on a Nokia mini computer.
In 1989 with rumours growing of a possible hostile takeover of Macarthy's I moved to Polygram Records and worked in the department dealing with the Britannia Music Club side of the company. Here I again worked as a programmer using COBOL on an IBM mainframe. However due to the cost of houses in and around the London area, which were particularly high at that time, and the fact that I was engaged and due to get married, I reluctantly decided to leave a move to a cheaper housing area. As my wife to be was from Colchester, that seemed to be the place to go.
So in 1990 I moved to Dalau Ltd, a manufacturing company based in Clacton-on-sea who make PTFE (a kind of specialised plastic, a form of which is widely known as Teflon). I was employed here as Computer Systems Manager, my first management position, and found that I quite enjoyed the challenge. I was initially responsible for a Nokia mini computer system with about 20 terminals, and by the time I left in 1997 was also responsible for a 25 user Windows NT network. I also developed a number of in-house software systems for the company and built-up quite a good working knowledge of XBase systems, especially Clipper & FoxPro for Windows.
I was born on 20th March 1964 (saves remembering to change my age every year!) and spent my early years in Dagenham & Romford, East London. I attended St. Joseph's Primary School, Dagenham until I was 8, then St. Patrick's Primary School, Collier Row, moving on to Campion Secondary School, Hornchurch. I've lived in Colchester, Essex since 1989.
I've been happily married to
Sally since 1989. She works as a Staff Nurse at Colchester
General Hospital (a job which I very much admire her for doing
and one that I definitely couldn't!). She is born and bred in
Colchester and went to Hamilton Road Primary School and later to
Alderman-Blaxill & St Benedict's Secondary schools.
We don't have any
children, but spoil our cat, Tipsy, instead (he's pictured here
in both his cute & mean looking modes!). We've also got a
collection of Tropical fish, some of which have their own names
(sad isn't it!). I'm a keen sports follower and play Badminton
regularly in a local club. 
I'm also a big sci-fi fan and I must
admit to being a bit of a Trekkie! I still enjoy the original
series and also rate Voyager very highly. I've been impressed
with the later Deep Space 9 series, but as for The Next
Generation...YAWN!!
I've also got a bit of a soft spot for good old
Dr. Who, my favorite doctors being the late Jon Pertwee & Tom
Baker.
I'm a
big football fan (soccer for any American readers!) and I've
followed the fortunes (or should that be misfortunes!) of
Wolverhampton Wanderers since I was about 7, though living in
Essex I've never actually been to Molinueux, but I hope to make a
pilgrimage there at some stage!
If you have any comments or just fancy a chat, you can E-mail me
at chris-r@clara.net.
I'd like to know how you stumbled across my
Home Page.
If you've got a spare moment, perhaps you could fill in my Survey Form.