About
Introduction:
I live in Southsea with my wife Teresa and like to think I generally enjoy life. The richer and more varied you can make it the better it is from my point of view. As I have got older I have told myself that I will keep both my body and brain moving.
As part of the idea with my various activities is that I have a view that the best thing for people is other people. I’m proud to say I still have friends from school that I see and strangers that are ”just friends that you haven’t met yet”.
I have an Irishman’s love of talking which makes my job as a driving instructor a very good fit for me. Also my volunteering roles make full use of this. A love of words and in particular my own have led me to trying my hand at writing.
Keeping Fit:
I like to think that the head and the heart are connected. If it’s good for my heart it’s probably good for my head. But also if it’s good for my head it’s going to be good for my heart. If you can get a kiss at each end of the day it’s a nice grounding telling you that you are loved and that must help you keep fit and well.
I tend to wake up early and more so during the summer when the sun also gets up early. My morning routine from a physical point of view is a 20 minute TM meditation session. I know that this is not active but it’s a physical relaxation which I think is good for me. It’s a rare day when I miss my meditation.
After my medation I will normally do some stretching. I remember my doctor telling me over twenty years ago that we all should stretch our hamstrings each day, so I do. After my stretches I have a cold shower.
The shock of the cold water is invigorating. If the water comes out warm for any reason it feels uncomfortable!
That said, in the middle of winter I do stare at the shower head wondering before I turn it on. A cold shower, warm towels and a hot shave are a wonderful start to the day. Also as long as I can take the cold water first thing I know I can cope with the rest of the day.
If it’s Sunday and the weather is good, myself and my good friends and neighbours Dave and Carol will go out for a walk on the Downs. They are good company and Dave pretends to laugh at my jokes. Being out in the countryside is a nice contrast to my city based car life. It’s good to fall asleep physically tired.
During the week I try to go to the gym and sauna a couple of times. It’s easier when you are meeting someone there and I am lucky that my good friend Richie feels the same way. We have either a swim or a work out and then talk rubbish in the sauna.
Sometimes just a nice walk down to the seafront cuts it. I got the habit during Covid lockdown. Living in Southsea is great, we have the sea and the seafront in front of us and the hill and the downs behind us and great pubs and people in between.
Volunteering:
I try to do a number of things and mostly for very selfish reasons, like it makes me feel good and I think it does me good. You might only vote once every four years but every time you volunteer and do something you are voting about the kind of society that you want to live in.
Work wise I am on two committee’s. The first is the Southern Driving Instructors Association which covers our local area and the next is the Approved Driving Instructors National Joint Council where I am a General Council member.
Where I live I am a director of the RTM company that helps run the building. My main task here is to move the dustbins about and if I don’t do it one of my neighbours will. It’s good to have good friends and neighbours but to have good friends and neighbours you have to be one first.
Leisure wise I used to volunteer at one of our local museums (The D-Day Story) on what is called LCT 7074, this is a World War 2 Landing Craft Tank(s). As far as I am aware I was the new boy, but I like a bit of history and it gave me a chance to talk to people. Every time I went there I would try to learn a new fact. The nerd in me lets me go onto the internet to check things out.
As a small boy one of our neighbours was the Portsmouth and England Footballer Len Phillips. You could kick an imaginary football to him and he would head it back. Len, like a lot of men, served his country in war, he did this as a RM Commando going ashore on D-Day from HMS Empire Battleaxe. For an excellent account of some of the men’s stories from that time click this link.
Driving:
For most of my adult life I have made a living from either driving or teaching people how to drive. I think people drive the way that they go through life. Some are very cautious and others are reckless. Whatever quality people have you will see it evidenced in their driving at some point.
I like to look at the process of learning to drive as alchemy. By this I mean the process of change. You have taken someone who can’t do something and with their consent have produced a change in them from not being able to do something, to being able to do so well.
I own and run Driving-Pro Limited which is a local driving school based in Portsmouth. Over a period of time we have become the biggest and best in the local area. We do this by the quality of the instructors. Checkout our website driving-pro.com
If I meet someone who wants to become an instructor I have a chat with them and I have what I call the bus test. Would you sit next to them on a bus. If the answer is no, then you are unlikely to want to have a two hour driving lesson with them. Checkout our instructor training website Passwith51.com.
Travel:
I have always enjoyed travelling and took my first big trip in 1980. I spent 4 1/2 months following the Nile down to its source in Uganda. The experience changed my life in many different ways.
In the first 24 hours I had been in 3 capital cities on 2 continents. My sleeping bag had got lost and when I got to Cairo I was successful in negotiating the taxi driver down from 10 Egyptian pounds to 4. The next day I found out that the real price was only 1. But from his point of view he was poor and I was rich. At the end of the day it’s better to be ripped off by the poor than the rich.
For the first week I hated it but to come back early would have been to admit defeat. By the end of the next week I loved it. The sounds, the smells, the sights. It was just the raw humanity of it all. And for the most part they were just ordinary people getting on with their lives.
I spent what seemed like a week on top of a lorry as I travelled from Khartoum to Juba. In Juba I stayed next door to a leper colony. My journey was becoming a bit more wild.
My next stop from southern Sudan was into war torn Uganda. The Tanzania army was still there in force. Every safe in the country had been blown and was lying on the pavements. Curfew was enforced by gunfire which reminded people to stay indoors.
Catching a train from Kampala to the border with Kenya I saw a man murdered on the station platform. The most remarkable thing about that was everyone was so cool about it.
There is more to my adventure but it all had a wonderful effect on me. Life was there for the taking and I was going to have my share. Since then I have done all the continents except the 2 covered in ice.
I’ve had some brilliant experiences and met some marvellous people.
Writing:
I have always been a reader and they say if you like reading you can write. For me it was having the courage to try. As I started to trade as a driving instructor I started writing copy for my website. It is nice to see your words in print even if it’s only on a website that you own.
My next milestone was to get myself into print. I started to submit articles for the driving instructor industry trade press. Once my first article was published my head was bigger than my mouth and I have a big mouth. I now do a regular monthly column in the ADINJC newsletter.
I’ve written a book now which is the Driving-Pro Limited handbook. I’ve managed to get that to 192 pages of useful driver training information.
My next goal is to be paid for writing something. I have some ideas for that but my main priority is running Driving-Pro.
