1995

Midway between new born and four-score-ten. What did it mean? Born at the end of the 1950s, by a few days, I was now 35 years old. A year older than this time last year. Was I any wiser? As editor of a low-key trade magazine I guess I was at the top of my chosen profession. Reasonably good wage, treated quite well in the organisation, small team of dedicated professionals behind me. I was a married, mortgage-paying dad of two. Or at least would be that summer as we happily awaited, at the start of the year, our new arrival. A lot would change over the coming years.

Reflecting on a life a long time past, as it now seems, it is difficult to remember what I thought, how I felt, about being 35. Thirty something, just like the TV series we watched a couple of years previously, though a million miles away from the lives of the characters of that particular show.

Still living in London, in a down-market part of suburban Croydon, thinking we needed to move to a bigger house, a better location to raise our growing family. It had to be a year of change, I tell my 35-year old self as a 63-year old. Was that how I saw it then? Perhaps the hardest thing of all is for a person to assess their own life as it is. At least it always has been for me. Am I happy or sad? Fulfilled or empty? Useful or not? Loving and loved? What kind of future do I have? What future do I want?

Certainly I felt love over-flowing for our little family, our family life, our days out together, our loving home, our safe and nurturing environment. Was it enough? Thinking back on that year it is hard to piece together what happened. In a way, nothing did. We just continued to live our lives as the world span on in constant turmoil. We continued together, and separately, as a family and as a group of four individuals.

But it would indeed be a year of change, and the beginning of many changes for all of us, for me at least. And this is, after all, my memoir. A memoir about me, for me, as I can hardly think anyone else would want to read it. Useful, though, to summarise one's life to date and consider where it is going next, if anywhere.

Yes, a year of change, a start of many changes. Our second baby, a lovely little boy, full of curly blond hair, full of joy. A loving sister to show her love by poking him in the eye or sharing an ice lolly with him.

Within a year I would leave my job. Not just leave my job but leave employment, moving into self employment for the first time. Specialist media business consultancy initially, before creating and developing a new business in its own right, a new company. Starting out on my own then bringing in first one, then two, then three, four, five colleagues to create this magical (yet unreal) concept of a corporate entity, a group of people with a shared aim. A corporate identity, an office base first locally, then moving up to the City of London. A bank account with its own funds, clients, suppliers, partners, an income for each of us, a future, a career running a business for me and for my various colleagues.

It was the earliest days of the commercial internet in the UK. Very much a backwater of online business compared to the US

Of course if I did it again, I would do it differently, hopefully better, but it wasn't a bad first attempt at setting up and running a new business. Of course it was an area I knew. At least I knew as much as anyone else did at the time. It was the earliest days of the commercial internet in the UK. Very much a backwater of online business compared to the US, but one that was fast growing, as it was everywhere else. At the time, most people in the UK had not used the internet, doubted its capabilities, even Microsoft had barely a presence at this time.

My experience of online publishing and advertising came from my role in helping to set up a web presence on behalf of my employer, a European media company. We had a budget, a team, and pretty much carte blanche. We could do as we pleased as long as we ended up with something that reflected well on the corporate brand. It had to have a high measure of quality. That it did. When I left, I retained many contacts, and made many more. In business, everything is your network.

Though no longer a full-time journalist, a writer or editor, I kept up an interest in writing and publishing. I kept my hand in. Sometimes by doing freelance work, mostly for my own or company's benefit. I set up my first website, which was all about the history of submarines. Something I had developed an interest in along with a dear friend whose own life has recently come to its natural end. I made several new remote friends, in the US and Canada mostly. One, a US Navy submarine veteran of the Pacific War, Ron Smith, even visited me on a trip to London. I was honored to share a meal with him, a traditional English meal at his request. He is now honored here, among other places:

Ron Smith (1925-2008)

This interest in submarines led me to pick up on a story that year of the discovery, in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina, of what was thought to be the remains of the confederate submarine H.L. Hunley. This was built in an attempt to strike back at the US Navy blockading Charleston Harbor during the Civil War. It was the first submarine in history to sink an enemy ship.

I made various calls to the survey team and to the archives of the Military Academy at West Point, to establish what was happening and how likely it was that the magnetic anomolly discovered by the survey was the Hunley.

The article was published in Military Illustrated the following year. Turns out it was the Hunley and the craft has since been raised and preserved in a museum. The remains of the crew were interred in a ceremony in Charleston, which was attended by descendants of some of the crew members.

Read the story of the discovery of the Hunley

My interest in writing continued, sometimes professional and fee-paying, as it was with the Hunley story. Sometimes just for fun. Certainly I have, to date, earned nothing more than pennies for any of my fictional stories. Most have been self published at my expense so, like most hobies and interests, it has a cost.

The creation of the online media company is a story in itself. One that began in 1996 and continued with my involvement until 2001, and on without me for some years after. This is another story, another year, and another chapter in my memoir. A memorandum to me, an attempt to consider my life as it was, as it is, and what it may become in the time that remains to me.

If you have read this chapter in my memoir, thank you for your interest. If you have read it and you know me, you will know that it leaves out more than it has put in. I have mostly left out mention of those nearest and dearest to me, those I love, as to include them would be an intrusion into their privacy and their stories. If they want to tell their own stories, that is for them to decide.

1995 ended, as years do, with Christmas, New Year and my birthday in December. 36 years old: six squared.

What would the new year bring?