About Me

Rudston Road County Primary School, Liverpool (photo taken in final year).

Back row L-R: Gillian Baldwin, Andrew Madeley, Gordon ?, Gillian Bruntskill, Stephen "Twiggy" Frear, Valerie Bull, Rachel ?, Gary Carson, Mr. Williams.

2nd row from back: ?, ?, Susan ?, Stanley Afflick, Lesley Crispin, ? Rothwell, Stuart Rberts, Clifford Sorrell, Stephen Cross.

2nd row from front: Paul Hurd, Susan ?, Gillian Madeley, ?, Michelle Tollet, Gillian Konzle, Helen Shorleson, ? Kirk.

It is sometimes incredible that we can learn anything in life when our parents tell us such disinformation in our formative years. I guess that an education system and experience will eventually correct any duff information imparted by your (or certainly my) parents but it does mean that you can be going around with some strange ideas in your head for a worryingly long time.

My Dad once told my Mum that a slagheap in St. Helens was known as the "Widnes Pimple". Although Widnes and St. Helens are about 7 or 8 miles apart my mother believed this for many years until an embarrassing incident with a local...

My Dad once told me <whilst we were feeding the ducks in Phoenix Park in Dublin I think> that although ducks could swim seagulls could not. So, he told me, if I ever saw a seagull that looked like it was swimming it must be shallow water and it was actually standing on the bottom. I accepted this information in good faith and only questioned his "education" on this matter several years later when I noticed a seagull on the water very close to the Liverpool-Isle of Man ferry we were on, did a quick comparison of the draught of MV Manx Maid and the length of a seagull's legs and thought "If this water is deep enough for this big ferry boat then that seagull cannot possibly be stood on the bottom!" My Dad then denied ever telling me anything about seagulls not being able to swim...

At school it was fairly normal to give teachers nicknames. I can't remember many of them, but I can remember that we had a religious education teacher called Mr. Gillotte who for some reason everyone referred to as Mr. Gillotti. I never understood that one.

He was called Mr. Gillotti so much I wasn't sure if that was his real name or not.

I walked up the platform at Dublin Heuston station (a terminus) along most of the length of the train before boarding. I made myself comfortable in my seat and the guard made an announcement over the PA system. "Good morning ladies and gentlemen, this is the 9:20 train from Dublin to Tralee calling at ....Limerick Junction... and the restaurant car is situated at the rear of the train". "That is odd" I thought to myself "I don't remember walking past a restaurant car as I walked up the train"... then the guard came back on the PA "I beg your pardon, the restaurant car is situated at the front of the train".

Andy Mackie, Gerry (a mate of Andy's) and I go to see a Tangerine Dream concert in Nottingham and then return to Andy's dwelling afterwards. So Gerry and I are sat chatting and Andy is flitting in and out of the room and I notice that he is looking increasingly worried so I ask him if he is OK. No he isn't. It turns out that he thought the concert was a bit loud at one stage so he stuffs some bog roll (toilet tissue) into each ear...and he now cannot get one of them out. So I take a look down his lug and cannot see any sign of any bog roll. Then he says he can feel it touching his eardrum. So I say we'll just have to go to the hospital with him, so we snap into action and start walking towards the hospital (1 or 2 mile walk)...with a general air of concern...

We arrive at the Queens Medical Centre A&E department and Andy goes to reception and some details are taken and we go to the waiting room... About 5 minutes later a nurse comes along and calls for "Mr. McKie" which Andy ignores until we tell him that she probably means him. So he goes up to the nurse who asks him "Have you got something in your ear?" to which Andy replies "Pardon?"...<sniggers from me and Gerry>...and leaves with her...

Meanwhile, while Gerry and I are waiting for Andy to return, another nurse appears and starts calling to an (unseen) person down a corridor to "come here" before popping into a room...then she appears again and calls for him again...(a few minutes have passed by this time)...then she appears yet again to look down this corridor and sighs and walks down the corridor to return with a guy in a wheelchair with one arm up in a sling and covered in blood..."He could only use the one arm so he was going around in circles!" she announces to us all <laughter>.

When I lived in Sheffield I had a regular Tuesday (I think) evening visit to the abode of Dave "Baldilocks" Pawson for a home brewing session.

On one of these occasions we were brewing a version of Greene King Christmas Ale (OG 1052) and had just finished the boiling stage and were transferring the hot wort from "copper" (a plastic bucket with a heating element) to the "underback" (another plastic bucket) via the "hopback" (a strainer). At some stage in this process the handle of the copper gave way with the result that some hot wort was poured on Dave's foot. Bear in mind that this liquid would have been just off the boil and, being a (complex) sugar solution, would boil at a higher temperature than pure water. So it was very hot. Not surprisingly Dave yelled with pain and very rapidly his shoe was pulled off, his sock was pulled off and his foot stuck into a bucket of cold water...

Fortunately Dave's foot was OK and after this rather dramatic interruption we eventually turned our attention back to our brewing. But guess where Dave's sock had landed when he threw it off in his panic? Yes, it had landed in the wort. But since it had been sitting at high temperature for several minutes by now I decided that it had probably been quite effectively sterilised. So the sock was fished out, the wort cooled, yeast pitched and it was fermented in the normal manner.

A few weeks later I returned for another brewing session during which we could sample Dave's finished version of Christmas Ale... and the unanimous decision was that it was the very best beer that Dave had ever brewed. I remember walking home through the snow with a distinct feeling of weightlessness after about 5 pints of that brew. It really was lovely stuff.

Brian, Mark and I went into Oxford for a few beers prior to Brian's departure to the USA.

Brian decided to buy a "disposable" camera in order to capture some images of this event. So we pop into W.H.Smiths in Cornmarket and one is bought...the packaging is removed and 2 or 3 pictures are taken en route to the White Horse in Broad Street... We settle in the White Horse with a few beers and Brian decides to investigate his new purchase...

Brian realises that the cardboard casing of his camera is merely cosmetic and supplies no useful function beyond giving instructions for use. So he rips off the cardboard casing to be left with a more skeletal, but still functional, plastic camera...

Brian continues to investigate his new toy...he discovers that the plastic moulding for (I think) the shutter is detachable so he amuses himself briefly going through the detach-replace cycle...

Brian then turns his attention to the winding mechanism, which is also a plastic moulding and begins to investigate its construction. As I remember it, it was a plastic lever that Brian proceeded to experimentally push in the wrong direction, presumably to see if he could detach it...I remember advising some caution lest he damaged it but my suggestions were dismissed as Brian continued his research...I watched as the plastic lever bent as Brian gently pushed upon it...until he went just that bit too far and PING! The plastic lever is suddenly ejected from the camera along with a few other plastic parts and a spring, which fly out across the pub. The expression on Brian's face as his eyes followed the arc of these components flying through the air is one that I will never forget.

At around 17:30 on Tuesday 1st November 1994 I had left work in Cambridge and was walking towards a bus stop. I had crossed the busy Milton Road and was about to cross a smaller road... and then I have vague memories of people, including neurosurgeons, asking me questions and then waking up in hospital on the Thursday morning. A car had hit me. Apparently my head had hit the windscreen of the car near the tax disc-if it had hit the pillar I would have been killed. My injuries were listed as:

- Compound fracture of right tibia and fibula (lower leg).

- Fracture of left tibia and fibula.

- Lateral ligament avulsion in left knee (this is were the ligament is torn off the bone).

- Fracture of right clavicle (collar bone).

- Rupture of tendon on left ring finger.

- Minor head injury.

This list doesn’t indicate how bad the fracture to my left leg was-it was smashed and the X-ray (when I eventually plucked up enough courage to look at it) looked like a mosaic of small bone fragments. The surgeons at Addenbrookes Hospital in Cambridge operated for around 8 hours to insert metal rods into both legs and repair my finger injury. I was then transferred to the Horton General Hospital in Banbury where the surgeon, Mr. Gillham said that the rod in my right leg was too long and the finger surgery had failed and he would transfer me to the “real experts” at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford. He was right; the team of surgeons in Oxford were superb. They operated again on my right leg while a separate hand surgeon operated on my finger in a 4-hour operation but it took 2 more hours in the recovery room to control the pain in my right leg afterwards. I was subsequently transferred back to Banbury where there was a long wait for the bone to mend sufficiently for me to take weight on my legs and the physiotherapy to get me walking again started. I was eventually released from hospital, on crutches, in January 1995. The physio continued and I came off the crutches in November but I was still a long way off 100% and I was considered to be unfit for work for most of 1996 too.

I returned to work in 1996 which was probably too soon since it took me some time to build up my stamina again. This wasn't helped by me effectively turning the clock back about 6 months when, in January 1997, I slipped on a wet floor at Edinburgh Airport and broke my left leg again. This was a minor problem compared to the Cambridge accident and the staff at St. John’s Hospital in Livingston sorted me out. Persistent pain in my left knee then required further physiotherapy at Murrayfield Hospital in Edinburgh. I have thought about getting a tour shirt made up of my visits to hospital orthopædic departments.

I am now not far off 100% recovered but I will obviously never be as good as new again. I get occasional aches and pains and my stamina with regards to walking or standing isn’t what it was. However, I consider myself to be very lucky to be alive, not paralysed and to still have my left leg.

I decided to add this story to my site partly because I have told it (in more or less detail) many times since it was obviously a major event in my life but mainly by way of thanks to the surgeons, doctors, nurses, physiotherapists, and other staff concerned for the process of rebuilding me. I would also very much like to thank the friends and family who visited me in hospital(s)-you know who you are. I am indeed very lucky to be surrounded by such wonderful people.

This is approximately what an X-ray of my legs would show.

Brian had taken me on a very enjoyable tour of Cleveland and we ended up in the Great Lakes Brewing Company with a number of his friends. The group was sufficiently large (I think there were about 20 of us) that we relocated to the basement of the pub and monopolised the tables in the centre of the room.

Good beer and good conversation was had, during which Lisa relates how, when Brian stayed with them on his first arrival in the USA she used to do his laundry for him. On one occasion, while Brian was out at the pub, she was doing his laundry and discovered a pair of his underpants having a pattern of balloons on them. She decided to wear these on her head and paraded around the room while Tom, her husband, asked her to stop playing with them...

Lisa then told how her father used to sit in the corner wearing her mother's bra on his head for some unexplained reason...

Lisa then told a story of how her grandmother went to the toilet and after some delay returned with a large turd in her hand and proclaimed "This goddam thing nearly killed me!"...

Lisa then told how the family dog had once been told off by the grandmother and while she was away to the toilet the dog took the opportunity to run into her room and crap on her bed...and the dog was taken to the vet where it was judged to be suffering from some sort of mental illness...

At this point I put my hand up and say "So let me get this straight, your Dad is sat in the corner with a bra on his head, you are mincing around with Brian's undercrackers on your head and your Grandma comes in with a turd in her hand? And you wonder why the dog has got mental problems?!"

I didn't think it was that funny, but I guess you had to be there. The whole room collapsed with laughter! Several people were crying with laughter. It was a good moment.

I was once staying with Kevin and Monika Smith in Woodford Halse for a few nights. One evening we decided to order a Chinese takeaway. Monika told Kev that they would give us free prawn crackers so Kev made a point of asking for "free prawn crackers" when he phoned in the order.

When Kev returned with the food he was laughing because we had been given four packets of prawn crackers...

How did that happen?

Wrote and published If In Doubt, Blame the Aliens!

Wrote and published The Home Brewer's Recipe Database

Wrote and published Genesis 2.0

He then suddenly asked me "Where am I?" so I gave him the perfectly correct but completely useless answer "Scotland". He had a bit of a think about this then asked me for a more precise location. So I said "West Lothian". My third answer would have been "on a bus" but he didn't give me time for that and he decided to get off at the next stop which happened to be in East Calder. Our problem solved! However, I very much doubt that he actually wanted to get off there and suspect that he'd actually wanted to get off in Edinburgh.

Revised and republished The Home Brewer's Recipe Database

As we progressed we came upon a large group of people milling about in the dark on the pavement. By the light from headlights of passing cars I saw a mix of all ages including children in costumes and a policeman carrying a small child. We needed to walk through this group of people in order to reach our accommodation. I started to walk through the group and just as I was in the centre of the melee they all started to shout out a countdown "10, 9, 8, 7...". I froze. We were strangers on a Scottish island amongst a group of locals in the dark all chanting in unison. Subliminal images of the film "The Wicker Man" flashed across my mind and I started walking as fast as I could through the group. Meanwhile, Mara behind me was wondering what I was doing.

"...6, 5, 4..."

With relief, I reached the other side of the group as the countdown finished...

"...3, 2, 1!"

Mara experienced walking in snow, making snowballs, throwing them at me etc. for the first time in her life. More images here.

We visited Ireland for a number of special events: My parents' 50th wedding anniversary, my father's birthday and Mara's first ever visit to the Emerald Isle. Myself, Mara and my sister and her husband stayed with my parents at the same hotel (in Parknasilla, Co. Kerry) that they had spend their honeymoon in back on 1956.

We went for a trip to Argentina (my first visit to the Southern hemisphere) which was a very enjoyable experience. We spent the time in Buenos Aires meeting Mara's friends and family. I found that the people were very friendly and gave me a very warm welcome, the food and wine was fantastic and I also found some good beer. BA is a very noisy, crazy city, where each taxi ride is like a wild computer racing game, but it is great fun and I look forward to returning.

This is me getting to know some of my new relatives (Vicky and Alejandra) in Buenos Aires