About Me

Born in 1980, I live in Stroud in Gloucestershire and have done so all my life.  I got a Commodore 64C Terminator 2 Judgment Day pack in 1991 and I was immediately hooked.  From that moment on I knew I wanted to pursue a career in technology.  A few years later I upgraded to a PC and this is where I started to learn everything I know today.  My older cousin, who also worked in IT, gave me the single best piece of advice regarding my computer.

Press buttons and see what happens, if it breaks, you’ll have to work out how to fix it.  

So, I did exactly that, breaking it multiple times and learning MS-DOS inside out.  By the time I finished my GCSEs, I started a BTEC Advanced GNVQ in IT at my local college and then in 1998 started a degree in Computing and IT at the University of Gloucestershire.  But in 2000 disaster struck.  A year and a half into my degree I fell extremely unwell and ended up having emergency surgery to remove a section of my bowel I was later diagnosed with Crohns disease.  Will my health continuing to be poor I fell behind with my degree and eventually had to give it up.  I was offered a fulltime job at Waitrose where I had already been working part time for 2 years and looked to start their trainee management scheme.  I spent another 8 years at Waitrose completing various roles, meeting my partner and other friends along the way.  With my health still not great I knew my career at Waitrose wasn’t going to progress and started to look for Junior IT roles to get m back to what I loved.  I 2008 I secured a role as a Network Engineer Apprentice and the rest as they say is history.  I am now a Network Architect who has worked for several companies in both the public and private sector.

Since 2000 my health and Crohns Disease has dominated my life which has led to regular hospital admissions (in fact I’m writing this from hospital as we speak) sometimes up to months at a time.  In 2021 I spent 15 weeks in hospital and during that time I discovered the retro gaming community on YouTube.  I started to speak to a few of the guys and started to get involved.  Although still relatively new to the hobby, I’d like to think I am now an established member of this community and I have made some great, lifelong friends along the way.

If you would like to know more about Crohn’s Disease you can do so by visiting the Crohn’s & Colitis UK website here.