Commencing with B. P. Tankers, I was trained as a Marine engineer, progressing onwards from apprentice gaining experience at sea in the running and maintenance of all equipment to be found in such vessels, soon to be running a regular watch as fourth engineer and advancing to senior third before leaving. Such equipment as Steam Boilers, both water tube and fire tube. Turbines, reciprocating steam engines, large, medium and small bore diesel engines, pumps, evaporators, heat exchangers and so on.

Leaving the sea, I spent the better part of a year working as a depot and field service fitter on petrol, diesel and compressed air powered site pumps.

Progressing from there I became a Hospital Engineer at Fazakerley Hospital, now I understand called Aintree Hospital, where I took responsibility for the control and administration of the day to day running of the engineering function of about 25% of that 173 acre site.
This covered both the electrical and mechanical installations and equipment within the hospital. My prime areas of employment there were the industrial areas. However, owing to a system of staff rotation and training, I had ample experience and training across the rest of the site.

Head hunted by Owen Owen Limited, a Liverpool based chain of Department stores, I went there as a House Manager, soon to become a Regional Engineer, responsible for the fabric of and services within the head office, central distribution warehouse and the three department stores of the T J Hughes subsidiary. This covered mechanical and electrical services, building services, building upkeep and the cleaning and porterage services.

Moving on, during the divorce from my first wife, I joined The National Vulcan Engineering Insurance Group as an engineer surveyor in the boiler and pressure vessel discipline.
At the request of this company I moved to my present address and commenced a life of working from home examining all manner of boilers and pressure vessels both within the scope of statutory regulations and insurance fitness for purpose frameworks.

To facilitate these examinations close contact had to be maintained with the clients, through which I received a good grounding in the local industries, especially food, baking, brewing, agricultural and dairy. Clothing and millinery, medical research and other laboratory based industries are also of note.

Early on in this employ I became a travelling surveyor, carrying out work where needed in most parts of mainland Britain including being hired out to BP at Baglan Bay and Saltend to assist with examinations during chemical works shut downs. Likewise to Shell at St Fergus for their Gas Terminal Shut down.

Further such work was done at Albright and Wilson, Whitehaven and ICI, Avonmouth and Carrington wearing my Insurance surveyor hat.

During construction I was involved with the A5 Acetyl plant at Saltend as the on site Third Party Surveyor, passing judgement on those parts of the equipment and pipelines which fell into the upper quality plan levels.

Likewise I spent a very short period on site at the Torness Nuclear Power Station when that was building before being sent to Renfrew to be the on site surveyor for the Gas Circulators and associated vessels being built there for both that site and the Heysham 2 site. 

Working normally in the Northern Home Counties, Central and North London, I have been involved with many sensitive and high security sites, including many years as the surveyor to the Metropolitan Police at their Hendon Training Centre and Police National Computer Centre. The Bank of England was in my purview for some ten years and several Whitehall locations for lesser periods.

Places in the public eye have also featured such as The Royal Albert Hall and Theatres.

Whist with National Vulcan I became an Area Engineer covering the discipline in the western parts of London and home counties. However after merger and becoming The Royal and SunAlliance Group, I found that I was not able to maintain the interest in continuing to re-apply for the job under the various guises and returned to being a surveyor.