As I rode home on the train at the end of my first day away from the motor industry I read in the paper of massive redundancies announced by my former employer. I felt I had made the right decision. But not for long ....

My new work place was in the centre of Birmingham. Hardly any light reached the tower block in whose lower floors I was located. The company was an American multi-national computer manufacturer with personnel policies and a management culture more akin to the 1950s. I was soon to feel I had made a great mistake in moving there.

The job was to run management training courses. But I was to do so using material written in the States by colleagues who never underestimated their own abilities. They could not or would not believe that their efforts might not work in the UK. There are none so deaf ... so I started looking for another job.

This was the 1980s and not a good time to be looking for work, but I kept doing so - until the company decided that its current difficulties in the UK could be laid at my door. The decision was made for me. I was given six months to find another job, after which I would be made redundant. If I found one before that time I would leave on the same terms. Not a bad deal.

It took the full six months, and 93 job applications, before I secured what was to be the last job I ever had. It had been an unhappy four years but I had seen that, even if the computer technology of those times had been fully applied, 80% of people would be out of work. Thereafter I was surprised, not by how high the unemployment figures became, but by how low they remained.