"the hardest battle is to be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, day and night, to make you someone else" - e.e. cummings
This is the page about my favourite subject: Me.
Well that was me a few years ago. This is a more recent 'wrecked liked Sunday morning' photo.
What a difference a few years of good living makes. And here is the rest of my personal page, with bits on:
| my autobiography | my personality | my politics | my interests |
| my family | travel: | the end | >
But first.....
Moving On
I'm now working for the Joint International Unit of the Department of Work and Pensions and the Department of Education and Skills, working on European Free Movement of Workers. Not entirely happy working here, since we merged with the naff Department for Social Security. Suffering from layoff lust *
|
* (LAY.off lust) n. The strong desire to be laid off from one's job, as in: A new term has entered the language: "layoff
lust," the sudden desire to be sent away with a severance package,
providing time at last to search for meaning and cultivate the soul. |
I've bought a two bedroom flat, in Hither Green Lane. . It's a nice enough flat, with a garden, although I really should do a bit of decorating, gardening, DIY and indeed housework (rather than spending all this time on the Internet). See my Flat Page for details.
Autobiography
Anyway, by popular demand, here's the potted autobiography:
I was born on 28 September 1956 in the middle of the Suez crisis. Such irony that in those days it was the US which was trying to restrain France and the UK from going to a futile war in the Middle East. My birthplace was West Ham, in East London This was my ancestral home but when I was four we moved to Edenbridge where I was brought up I had a nostalgic trip back last November, to see its famous Bonfire Night. Here are the pics I took.
As far as education goes, I went to Edenbridge Primary School and then Judd School in Tonbridge, Kent. I studied History at New College, Oxford. I'm still very interested in History not just Modern History (which in Oxford began with the end of the Western Roman Empire) but also in the Ancient variety. After Uni, I joined the UK's Department of Employment. I moved with work to Sheffield , where I serfed at the Department for Education and Employment's Moorfoot monstrosity. I'm now back in London, where I work at the moment on Free Movement of Workers, at the Joint International Unit of the Department for Work and Pensions and the Department for Education and Skills, dealing with policy on Free Movement of Workers, including enlargement of the European Union.
Are you still awake?
I leave it to others to make a truer assessment of my personality: discerning people think I'm wonderful, some people think I'm difficult. I guess I'm probably both, or neither. If anyone's interested, I am the eldest child, of four (apparently, this is significant). I score as an INTP on the Keirsey Temperament test.
Politics is the bane of my life, I sometime feel. Goodness knows why I got involved in the first place. Perhaps something to do with coming from a large family. Anyway, I started off as Ward Secretary of my local Labour Party at 17, carried on into the Oxford University Labour Club in the mid-70's, got fed up with apologising for Callaghan's Government and joined the Liberals in 1978 and was immediately press-ganged into becoming a defeated local council candidate. I served as a Liberal Democrat councillor for Walkley in Sheffield from 1994 to May 2000. Then took a break and moved to London.
And then I got elected to Lewisham Council! More details on my Politics page.
My Other Interests
Besides History and Politics, my interests include most types of music, plus theatre, cinema, and reading. And travel.
I've always had an interest in losing
weight, which has been an up and down affair.
I had a minor triumph some years ago in winning the sponsored slim of Sheffield
City Councillors, managing to lose two and a half stone (that's 35 pounds to
Americans....not sure what that is in dollars). I'm really now determined to
give this a proper go and get down to under 12 stone by...well.....whenever
.
My Family
My family emigrated to New Zealand and left me behind. My Mum died in 1999 and Dad now lives alone in Milford on Auckland's North Shore, near to my two sisters, Janet and Carol. Janet is married to Paul Hood and has three children: Nicola, Emma and Thomas. Carol has a daughter, Elizabeth (Lizzie). My brother Ian is now in Sydney, Australia. He is married to Karen and they have two daughters: Laura-Jayne and Stephanie..
Lizzie is now Officially Gifted and is going to brainy school. And she is an actress. And still only eight years old.
It's probably time I thought about visiting again. But it's all so expensive. Plus I need to get the time off work, which ain't easy.
To delve deeper, look at my Genealogy Page.
I like to travel. Fortunately, work gives me chances to travel around Europe: mostly Belgium, but occasionally more interesting places such as Portugal. Here are some of the pics from Portugal. (quite a lot, so this page may take a while to load). And every so often I visit New Zealand.
My most recent trip was a long weekend in Cologne. And very cultured it was too. So much art in those museums. How did ever survive the War?
Pictures
For pictures of my Catalan holiday and much else, please see my new Mac pages .
Contacting Me
You can phone or text me on 07966 430722. Or e-mail me at andrew.milton@btinternet.com or andrew_milton@mac.com
This material is copyrighted by Andrew Milton but may be reproduced without
formal permission or charge for personal or in-house use only. (c) Copyright
1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003