Trade up.

I had a new mindset, or it was a more deranged mindset from the previous one, so the cut and shut car did not quite fit in with my new attitude. It had been reliable, yes, but it had that one major factor that potentially it was of German original where it had been written off, shipped to the UK and then stitched onto another.

I was a bit concerned about what an MOT station would make of it, so with six months left on the ticket I decided to trade it in for a brand new car and discard all the irritants.

I took it to Skelmerdale Motors, a Ford dealership, they put it up on the hoist and decided against a trade in for me, the guy came out and asked me to follow him into the shop where he pointed out a few dubious joins on the undercarriage. His advice was to try another dealership as Skelmersdale had a high "Scally" population and they had been burned before.

I then took it to the Wigan Ford dealership and had a stroke of luck, it was the salesmans last week there and he agreed to part exchange the car after only a brief walk around. The trade in value was very good and I basically did the deal there and then.

If I fast forward six months, I receive a letter from a consumer agency, requesting my history of the car, where I purchased it and what I knew about it, there was obviously a future investigation of the cut and shut, but for me, on the 6th of August 1986, the XR3i was gone for good.

The Longest time

The CDR was over but the work continued, stick models evolved as they were updated with the latest component stiffness and the new results were not without their drama, analysis on certain components had to be revisited, and in some cases, material was added.

When material was added, or taken away, the stick models had to be rerun, it was almost an endless loop.

The swinging link that connected the trailing arm to the cylinder was a component that we had "fun" with, resulting in the following song that would be sung to Billy Joel's "Longest time" :

"Let me sing a sorry little tale,
of a link that surely will fail,
Torsional shear stress,
greater than yield stress,
and we know it happens on the longest side.

(chorus)
Swinging link, gonna swing no more
Trailing Arm, trailing on the floor

And when all the shit hits the fan,
Tasker will be over in Japan,
And while he's sailing
Links will be failing
Failing in the middle of the longest side."


Japan was replaced with Garstan' for some reason, which equally made no sense. I thought the original words included Ray Norton which would make more sense of the (wind)sailing reference.

Slideshow 5/5

The Reclining Buddha. Ray Norton in his Office Clothes.

Slideshow 4/5

Mann's Chinese Theatre

Slideshow 3/5

Gone with the WInd, Universal Studios

Slideshow 2/5

Men with Noses, Harold Sharrock, Ramada Inn.

Slideshow 1/5

Matt Hilliard outside of Oakwood Apartments

The Party is Over

June, 1986

The first CDR on a Military type program, the big guns from McDonnell Douglas were there, some fresh faces from the Navy, including some Navair types and of course, the APPH contingent.

The work had been done, the presentation polished and all that was left was the delivery, which was reasonably smooth, a funny moment or two, especially when Uncle Phil stood at the front of the room and faced the wrong way all through his part of the presentation.

I was there for support on the FEA, loads and support reactions, so I sat quietly to one side and relaxed, it was, for the first time, a proud moment to be working on a program of this magnitude and definitely a team effort.

Along the way, peoples lives had been changed, and I'm sure that my experience was not unique and in retrospect, all the angst and heartache that the previous eighteen months had brought into my life had been more than balanced by the love, joy and good old fashioned excitement that the experience had brought.

The Rat Pack

I picked Bob, Harold and Phil Robinson up at LAX for the CDR festivities, it was Phil's first time out in California and he was a lot of fun.

Having Phil around was like a visit from your favourite Uncle and that was something we all needed to lighten up the tense mood before the CDR.

Epilog

The final trip to California started on the 4th of June, 1986 and I found myself, once again, in building one at McDonnell Douglas, this time as a visitor to support the Critical Design review.

I had found Graham Miller at his desk, he had a cheeky grin on and I knew exactly where he was coming from, he finally had his California moment which I had stolen from him almost eighteen months before. It seemed right that he should experience this world and I hoped it had a similar life changing effect on him.

On the weekend I met up with Nancy at Hof's Hut and somehow tried to make sense of it all, I knew I'd upset her terribly and that upset me and in some ways I wished that the whole America thing had not happened.

In other ways though, I wished it could all be restored back to those first months of our relationship before any of the distance or heartache, however, it was over and we both cried over a lost love, perhaps a little more than we should.

I drove her home and as she walked away from the car I finally acknowledged that she, and perhaps America, were out of my life.

Endgame

The work had intensified to fever pitch on the T45TS main Landing Gear and the FEA work, internal loads, support reactions had to be completed for the Critical Design Review (CDR) in June, 1986

The success of a CDR would mean that the production drawings could be appoved by the customer and components manufactured.

I had finally worked through all the bugs on the flexible stick models and found it quite helpful that Mark Overton could do some of the FEA work on other projects while I focused on the presentation materials.

It was also quite a relief that I would not have to present anything.

Crosby Marina

The vanished job applications at McDonnell Douglas were a catalyst for both Ray and myself and we both went off in opposite directions. Ray and Stacey, who had been together at Christmas 1985 definitely had a plan B and it was time to launch it.

It was a bright Sunday and I drove down to Crosby, I'm not sure if my original intention was to visit Ian Tasker or to see if Ray Norton was windsailing there at the marina.

I ended up at Crosby Marina and sat on a park bench, people watching. It was a fresh, sunny day and I sat there for an hour or more, replaying my life up to that point and returning to some of the thoughts I had at the end of 1984 and the pre California days of 1985.

You could call it a step function, an epiphany or a light bulb moment, but I ended up calling it my "Crosby Marina Moment" which changed the course of my life from that point on. Self diagnosis that fixed a lot of the issues that were causing me trouble.

I would think that some people might just call it growing up and taking responsibility for my actions.

Wingatisms

Things John would say :

"Wot's a billet? - is it a type of fish?"

On a discussion about hand forgings :

"Wot!, do they do it by hand then?"

Attempts at humour :

"..and then he said, go make some tea Ern..Tea Urn, Geddit?...Hhhuuurrrrr!"

Ian : "John, do you have a slow cooker"
John : "Narrrggh, it's reasonably fast"

At 8.37am on a Wednesday morning :

"Hhhuuurrrr! - I fink I'm going to have trubble getting motivated today"

It's all very much "you had to be there" type of humour, John was quite the character and good at his craft. I often wonder what he thought of us numbskulls.

Kindergarten

The John Wingate plasticene model.

Phone Fun

There were two phones between those two for some reason, two phones that shared the same filing cabinet, so what we would do when they were not looking would be to swap the handsets. As both phones had the same ringer, there was endless fun ringing the one nearest John which he would pick up, of course, he was picking up Howards handset.

"Hello?... Hello?... HELLO?"

Usually John would be exasperated and say something like "Aaaaargh, must be that fantom phone caller again!" and of course the musketeers would crack up.

Other variants on the theme would be to just hang up, usually Brendan or Ian would call from a drawing office phone, again, we would all giggle like a bunch of schoolgirls.

This may sound childish, and indeed it was, in fact the one thing that we excelled in was silly.

Howard Van Netton

The man who walked me from the security desk to the Stress Office for my interview back in 1982.

John Wingate

John Wingate sat at the back of the bus, next to Howard Van Netton. The pair, as members of the SuperTASS squad, were supposed to be a calming influence on the terrible trio of Weldon, Hutchison and Tasker, however, they were the victims of many a practical joke and prank by the musketeers.

HoHoHo

Singalong now...

Sort of sung to a Michael Finnegan beat.

No Visa No Job, No Job No Visa
No Visa No Job, No Job No Visa
No Visa No Job, No Job No Visa
No Visa, No Visa, No Job

No hope.

Nothing

There are times when something you already know is confirmed to you, yet, you act in such a surprised and emotional way, as if the known reality was unthinkable and you were just thinking about that negative aspect of it all so that it would all be so much more special when it all turned out right...

I called McDonnell Douglas, it was a painful process phoning long distance back then and it took about fifteen minutes just to get through. The nice American lady at the reception asked politely about my enquiry and transferred the call to the employment department and the second nice American lady asked for my name so that she could pull up my file on the computer.

"There is no record of your application, who did you deal with at the time?"

I mumbled...

"I will transfer you to the originating department"

The phone rang and Willie Boehringer picked it up, I explained what had just happened and asked why our applications were not in the system, and, as they say, it all went quiet over there.

It had been over six months since Ray and myself had sat in that room, six months of some hope of employment in the USA and in one phone call, those six months evaporated into nothing.

The Bennetts

Graham and Karen back in 1979 before setting off to the Isle of Man for the TT races, the weekend of the 12th March, 1986 was their wedding and reception, so me and Karen packed an overnight bag and stayed the night at the Taskers.

Crunch Time

Graham Miller was off to the USA and I was not only FEA lacky on three jobs but was also having my brain extracted on the subject by Mark Overton and another chap in the office, Howard Van Netton. It was a busy period with plenty of overtime.

However, nothing could distract me from the fact that Graham was over in the states and I wasn't. If there was something out and about to make me miserable, I was going to latch onto it, it seemed like a lifestyle.

I had a phone call from Nancy and she was seeing someone else, it was inevitable and I reacted very badly, which was quite hypocritical of me as I was seeing Karen. It was just another example of me being irrational because of a crazy situation.

I say in the diary it was like being in limbo, trapped in an imaginary world (the USA) and unable to function properly in the real world, Britain.

McDonnell Douglas were ignoring the pair of us, which was frustrating and with some encouragement from Ray, I was about to call them...

Boy Racer

The car was bought on the 21st March, 1985 at a place called Gibsons Car Care in Standish, the guy had a body shop and he was honest about the car having a new front end on it.

It was around a thousand dollars below book price, but I was buying risk, which the guys at APPH reminded me of a lot in the first few weeks, they were right of course, but the excitement of the car was immense.

There were a couple of minor problems in the first two weeks, bonnet latch and a tickover problem which was an electronic module, but the car was behaving itself.

The car was a distraction from the mundane aspects of my life, it would provide a lot of fun and excitement over the five months that I owned it...

XR3i

Dave proudly showing off a couple of his girlfriends.

Excitement

It was a time of computer games, that is for sure, the Commodore 64 was actually slowing down my drinking habits and encouraging social activities that did not require money.

That's not to say I wasn't still drinking far too much, or wallowing in a sort of permanent self pity about not being in America, I wrote in the diary that equilibrium was setting in and therefore, 1986 was going to be boring, well, up until the start of March it had been exciting, but maybe in the wrong way.

The cheque arrived from the insurance company, so I was in the market for another car, my thinking being something more upmarket that the Cortina, I had taken out a loan to buy that car, so I paid that off and took out a bigger one.

Now that was exciting...

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

One of the many reasons why a pair of Olivetti M24 computers did little to increase office productivity.

Sublogic/Microsoft Flight Simulator 1985

Pocket Computer

February, 15th, 1985


It all depended on how big your pocket was, the PB-700 cost me just a few pennies under a hundred pounds and was a bright light in those early winter months. I loaded it up with three expansion modules, rampaks, and I had something to play with on the daily train journey.

I would program it, using BASIC, with those interesting column calculations from McDonnell Douglas, Lug sizing logic and of course, a slot machine simulation that became the most played game in the office (next to Microsoft Flight Simulator and Infocoms Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy).

Delaying the Inevitable

It was the end of January and APPH had not paid me seven days holiday money that they were supposed to, an event that derailed my money management somewhat.

I had an interview at Gullick Dobson of all places on February the 10th, the job was for Project Engineer and I kept it all very secret from the lads, I joked in my diary that I was scattering the soil from the escape tunnel in the office and nobody had noticed.

The interview went rather well, which is usually a bad sign, however I came out of the place feeling more confident about life and myself, all I needed was a car to potter around in.

A letter arrived a week later, a typical form letter saying thank you and we will keep your information on file and, to make matters worse, Graham Miller was off to California on the T45TS program.

On Friday the 21st I told my boss, Bob Morris, that Gullicks had offered me the job, it was the first tactical gamble I had made in my career and it scared the hell out of me, it started a chain reaction that rapidly elevated me to the long overdue first level of the S2 grade.

Within three months I was at the next level and before my birthday in October I would be an S3 grade.

However, it was all too much, too late.

Deja Vu

January 16th, 1986

It had been almost three months and neither Ray or myself had heard anything back from McDonnell Douglas about our applications, I was using my fingers crossed statement again quite liberally and combined with my lack of transport, January was turning out to be a miserable month.

The physical distance between Long Beach was vast and day by day, the mental distance increased, I was settling back into life in the UK, I was finally managing my money somewhat and my social life was back on track as my head shrunk back to almost it's normal size.

Ray and I decided to send a letter to Willie Boehringer to see what was going on, I recall something similar happening with Ray Crawley at Menasco and I was more certain than ever that another door was about to be slammed shut.

Back on the Train Gang

The depths of January, cold morning walks from my house down to Pemberton station, cold walks from Hunts Cross station at the other end to work.

The only upside was that, at least, I was enjoying a bit of exercise in my misery.

Lost and Found

It was a week later when I received an interesting phone call from a chap in Garston, he had "found" my case on the shoreline, very slightly damp.

I picked it up, thanking the guy in a suspicious manner, and looked inside.

The documents, floppy disks and book of interesting engineering facts were there, no calculator and printer of course, but nevertheless, I was happy that something was salvaged.

Coffee Table

January, 6th, 1986

I was in a decorating mood and wallpapered my bedroom, I thought I'd sparkle up my downstairs with a coffee table, so went into a budget furniture "superstore" called MFI in Speke after a day at the salt-mines.

I parked the Cortina and set off on the usual search for a holy grail, of course after about ten minutes in there I decided that their compressed bird seed, veneered masterpieces were not for me.

I was walking around the car park, like a bloody fool, looking for the place I’d parked my car. Not in the front car park, look in the back, not there?....look in the front again....etc.

Where the hell had I parked it?

As with the first Cortina in my life, the last Cortina was gone, stolen, and as you may guess, in the dark rainy days of January, this was not the happiest moment in life.

In addition, my briefcase, along with my calculator, printer and the small compiled "book of interesting stress facts" was gone, and, to my horror, my floppies and the Microsoft Flight Simulator disk.

I called the Police from the store office and they just said I should come into the station and file a report.

That was it, a short taxi drive, one form, never seen again.

Gone.

Happy New Year, 1986

Situation Normal

November, 1985

Things had changed in the APPH Stress Office, I believe that management, quite rightly, had decided that it was a bad, bad thing to only have one FEA "expert" so they tasked me to teach everything I knew to a young man called Mark Overton.

In addition, Graham Miller had been promoted to what they called an S2 grade, and the power was going right to his head, I wrote in my diary that I didn't like the way that he had taken the helm and that was all I needed.

I still had somewhat of an edge with the FEA although Mark was a quick learner. In addition they tasked me with the selection of a couple of computers for the office, and after a long and thoughtful deliberation phase Olivetti M24s were chosen, mainly because I could run my Microsoft Flight Simulator on them.

It was still evident that my pay grade was not going anywhere, as though the California trip was reward enough, however, I do note later in the month that my pay packet was huge (due to overtime) and that my earnings in 1985 had been the best ever.

I just had to stop pissing it away.

Took a boat Sunday

I filled in my application for a job at McDonnell Douglas, in fact, we both did and it was Friday the 18th of October when Willie Boehringer called me, and Ray, into Cecil Cooks office.

I wrote in my diary that it was possibly one of the most important days of my life, yet I felt jaded and suspected that this would turn out to be another Menasco. It was, however, a twig to clutch onto as our California experience ended.

The goodbyes this time felt final, the Cleveland Pneumatic group long gone, representatives from British Aerospace, gone, and the great group of McDonnell Douglas people, all about to slip out of our lives forever.

I clutched onto Nancy at the airport, not wanting the moment to end, a deep sorrow that I had not felt before, the entire American experience ending with the one person that represented the bright light in my life.

And then, it was gone.

So down here on the ocean we will stay
We will stay. We will stay.
Went through a lot of changes
Turned a lot of pages
When I took a boat on Sunday

Magic

It was October 1985 and it was my 28th birthday.

The gang surprised me with a birthday party in California, a Keg party, lots of beer, friends, Nancy, Ray and Stacey. Lots of beer - did I mention that?

We piled into a room and we did the bottlecap trick, with a real fork, Nancy was my mark and for six or ten iterations, people in the room gazed amazed at the ability of the English dude to find the penny under the bottlecap.

One chap was fascinated and was convinced it wasn't voodoo or real magic, well, he had the right didn't he?. He tried many variants, sheltering his moves (from me, not my mark) and then after several frustrating attempts he decided that the only way to beat the system was for himself to be the only one in the room.

So we all trooped out of the room, went and had another beer from the keg, then, when he was ready, we all trooped back.

Everyone was agog, the English boy looked at the five bottle caps, asked the usual question "are you sure it's under one of these?" waved the fork and felt the vibrations. My mark, Nancy Baker, unable to help me, just smiled and soaked in the moment, if it was, it was, if it wasn't, well, there was more beer and the game was up.

With a confident flourish, I flipped a cap.

It was.

Fifteen people in that room believed in magic for a moment.

The skeptical guy was in total awe and confusion, his logical mind scrambled by the turn of events, but he was happy that he was impressed by something he could not explain.

In the corner, I hoped that one pretty tall California girl thought that the English boy was cool and at that moment I thought that I was very lucky.

And you know, I was right for more than one reason.

Because, outside in the yard, the Keg was still half full.

Born in the USA

No need for a major comment, he played for over four hours and it was amazing. Check the price of the ticket.

Including the charge, it was less than twenty bucks for possibly the best concert I had ever seen.

Heat

Saturday, 31st August

The day was spent down at Huntington Beach and I made the mistake of putting Ray's tanning oil on, big mistake as that stuff encourages burning and that I did.

Late night we were filling up at a gas station, the midnight adventure of driving out to the Grand Canyon and Las Vegas. I believe we were in Stacey's car, a big slumbering waterbed of a car, I was in the back seat, nursing my overtan and we set off in some direction.

We arrived at the Grand Canyon as the sun was coming up and it was definitely a Kodak moment, so we marvelled as the sun crept over the horizon and lit this magnificent hole in the ground. This was a highlight, yet, for some reason, once the box was ticked it was a case of what's next and are we there yet?

As the day warmed up and the heat arrived, there was a constant struggle with an inefficient air conditioning system and this part lobster, part human in the back seat who wanted to roll the window down.

Boulder Dam and Lake Mead, the place looked exactly like it did in the Superman film yet better lit, high definition and amazing blues, the dam is an engineering marvel and I've been back there many times since then.

Then onto the City of Sin, Las Vegas for the first time, a place that has changed a lot over the last twenty four years, however, one thing that hasn't changed is the heat and on that September day all those years ago, with the aid of Hawaiian Tropic, that heat was the last thing I wanted.

Grand Canyon

6.30am, Sunday September, 1st, 1985

Like I said, not that there's anything wrong with that...

Acapulco Inn

August, 27th, 1985

The four of us, Harold Sharrock, Owen Mayne, Ray Norton and myself took ourselves out to the Acapulco Inn on 2nd Street which was an odd choice, a hole in the wall bar that was quite different than Legends.

Historical information is fascinating, a pitcher of beer was $2.25 and we had quite a few, we had not noticed that there were only men in the bar, but hey, that was usual wasn't it?

Ray was dressed in his usual Don Johnson duds, sockless and was getting quite a bit of attention, I think I was sat at the bar and some guy was really interested in my watch, leaning in to look at it and Owen became excessively talkative the more beer that went in.

The next morning at Douglas, several guys in the office told us that it was a gay bar.

Not that there's anything wrong with that...

Repeat

I had completed the flexible stick models on the T45TS and it was obvious that a couple of components on the gear had to be redesigned somewhat, reactions were higher with the p-delta effects and the loop had to be closed.

In quiet rooms, people were talking about us and they had decided that we had to return to the USA. The announcement came quickly and took both Ray and myself by complete surprise, a pleasant one, but once again an event that would dramatically affect our lives.

The Menasco job was dead, I'd accepted that, but this gave me another opportunity to research the possibilities and of course, another trip to California and a chance to reach the beach one more time.

Bad Timing

I was once again spending too much money, any advantage I had from the USA trip was long gone and at the end of July, 1985 on the way back to work my timing belt broke on the Cortina.

I managed to obtain a long tow back and took the cylinder head off to see if the valves had crumped into the pistons, miraculously there was little damage and it looked like I had dodged a bullet. It was a case of replacing the gaskets, although it seemed that the water pump, for some reason, had died.

I was reverting back to the old me as far as money management and once again I was complaining in my diary that it was a long time off the end of the month and payday, and that was on the 9th of August!!

High Teck

The middle of July 1985 I was tempted into the home gaming world with a Commodore 64, I had a computer in the house before this, a sad, obsolete Mattel Aquarius, however, as we all know (now) most hardware that ends up in our households is potentially obsolete right out of the box.

Gravity

The year was moving along and my social life had become rather complicated, I had met a nurse who worked down at Billinge Hospital outside Wigan, an interesting woman who liked to schedule me in on a Wednesday night for a good seeing to, usually activity on that night would leave me sated until the weekend.

In addition, I was still in contact with the girl in the USA, I'd record the occasional "mixed tape" for her and write, we would telephone each other, but long distance rates at the time were horrendous. I had booked a flight to go out to California at Christmas, but that was a long way off.

The single man facade was broken, I was in the same pub as Karen on Thursdays through to Sunday and the pair of us tried to ignore each other, that became even more impossible when she elected to be a single girl again, so it was just a matter of time before we were seeing each other.

Treading Water

It was over six months since the strike action and there were still grumblings in the office about the pay structure, and some of the more active TASS members were still being secretly victimised.

I was no exception and I had a word at the end of June with my boss, Bob Morris, who admitted it was unfair and was going to look into it, I noted in my diary that I should not hold my breath.

There was a representative from McDonnell Douglas in the office, a gentleman called Art Shaw who we had met while out in California, I'd spend time when not working on FEA models chatting to him about the USA. Initially, he was one of those guys who impressed me with his lifestyle in the states, however, it was not solely due to engineering and evident that he was very much an entrepreneur.

There had been no reply or action from Menasco and it seemed to me that I was trapped in limbo, no action from across the pond and a stalemate at APPH over the pay structure, so I started to look around for an alternative.

Single Man

I was glad to be at work for a change, the life of a single man was often quite the roundabout, late nights, drinking too much of course (but there was nothing new about that) and waking up with strange men in the house.

It was supposed to be women, but for some reason, mates kept using my place as a crash pad.

I had actually started training again, evenings at the floodlit astroturf park outside of Wigan, real bites your legs football and of course, club nights out with whatever group of lads that were available.

Therefore, work became an island of serenity, a place to sober up and have a bit of fun with two other stress guys, Brendan Hutchison and Ian Tasker, the three of us would break up the monotony of real work with quite a bit of tomfoolery.

Nerdtime

I suppose I should be continuing the parade of the calculators, this guy, a Texas Instruments TI-66. was bought at Comet in March 1985 for just under thirty-seven quid. I bought a matching thermal printer later in the year.

It was soon to go missing under not too mysterious circumstances.

I knew Jack

Jack Pritchard, the quiet stressman. A great believer in Roark's Formulas for Stress and Strain long before Warren C. Young arrived on the scene.

Rinse, Repeat

I must admit that the work was very interesting and I think that may have been because I was in command of the direction of the job, however, that started to change somewhat as other programs competed for the FEA work.

The process of stick models was repetitive, some would be initially stable and then go berzerk after two or three iterations, the goal being to have a stable model after five or so iterations to ensure that all internal loads and reactions reflected a balance at the deformed geometry.

I was lucky as I could zone out when running things over and over and over again, probably as my IQ is around that of a turnip, although that might be a bit insulting to that particular root vegetable.

Nuts and Bolts

The T45TS job was still progressing and we had direction from McDonnell Douglas that we should be developing our internal loads, for classical analysis and airframe reactions, from flexible FEA "stick" models.

I think their recommended analysis software was Nastran, but APPH was not going to shell out $10,000 or more for a piece of software, especially as we already had the ASAS FE code system from Atkins and the expensive translation software to port in and out of Patran.

I was sent to Atkins for a few sessions with their consultants and we fathomed a method to create a landing gear stick model from their BM3D elements and the occasional shear plate. It was interesting stuff compared with our old method of hand stitching BASIC code into a logic bomb.

It was during that time that NAFEMS was introduced and it seemed a good source for the developing FEA community, so APPH joined and we started receiving useful information from them.

The initial excitement of the stick model concept was soon to be replaced with many weeks of frustration as I wrestled with releases, instability and a benchmark against one of those logic bombs that could never be correct due to p-delta effects.

It was June, 1985 and I would still be working on those T45TS models, in some form, in July, 1986

Touchdown

There was a beach party the following night, the group of us from the pub hired a van and drove off towards the coast, Formby or Ainsdale, to have a night of drunkedness, as if we needed a van to do that.

The ex-girlfriend was with her boyfriend, who I knew and I was this returning astronaut type of guy that nobody knew any more.

I walked away from the group and went off to sit facing the sea, it was dark and I sat there talking to myself, I know, I know, insanity was setting in. It was noticed by a couple of guys in the group that I had gone missing and they started searching for me, not that I wanted to be found.

This beach was far, far way from the beach where I wanted to be, and the sense of being powerless was great, but resistance was futile and the following weeks were spent trying to fit back into a lifestyle in the UK that was alien and unfriendly.

High Apple Pie, in the Sky, Hopes

The two things that happened on the 24th May 1985 that were of note were that I went to Parry's bookshop in Liverpool and bought my first Roark, a stress and strain handbook, a sign that I was more serious about this Stress Analyst game after my American vacation.

The second thing was that, in conversations with the American Embassy and the subsequent forms they sent to me, it was apparent that I needed more from Menasco than their letter of intent, and of course, by now I had realised that the wording on their "job offer" was possibly not worth a dime.

It was not Ray Crawleys fault, he was an engineer and not a lawyer and probably wanted me to work there, but of course, the American Embassy had a whole bunch of rules associated with a US Company wanting to employee an alien such as myself.

So, I had sent off a package to Mister Crawley and Menasco, consisting of some forms that I would like them to fill in, I had high hopes that they could pull some strings but a nagging feeling that it wasn't going to work out too well.

Breather

It causes an interesting effect to look back in time and sift through the events of a year like 1985, I'll drag myself to present day for a moment and take a pause on those few months that had such a profound effect on my life.

This may be a bit of a spoiler if anyone is reading this (backwards) as a reality blog, but it's all happened and, as my mother would have said, it is all water under the bridge. I know that some people would rather leave the past where it is, however, I have always valued my past as it represents the building blocks of who I am today, and I realise, now in my 52nd year, that I won't always be around to tell my story, so here it is.

In all the time I have communicated with my son, Mick, over the last ten years or so, we have come to a mutual respect position, and one of the things he has taught me, is that regret is meaningless.

There will be one moment in 1986 when things change and I became so much closer to who I am today, so I will continue and tell the story between May 1985 and that point and try and tell it as honestly as I can.

Slideshow 5/5

The flight home, Sunday the 19th May, 1985.

It felt like the party was over, Ray and myself started the flight with red eyes from crying at the airport as we said our long goodbyes to Stacey and Nancy.

I remember Harold looking at the pair of us with sad eyes, shaking his head as though he knew that it would all come to this.

Slideshow 4/5

The first month and a trip out with Ray Norton, Jim Baker and Harold Sharrock to Palm Springs.

It was ninety degrees down in Palm Springs and below zero at the top of the aerial tramway run at around 8500 feet.

The world of Palm Springs was a million miles away from my own, the home of the rich and famous, a hyper clean city with boutique shops, no seven dollar Levi’s to be seen.

Slideshow 3/5

Open day at McDonnell Douglas, employees and families only. As usual, bright blue skies and a holiday feel.

Side note, Levi jeans were inexpensive in California, a pair of the famous 501s (button fly) could be purchased at the Levi store for seven dollars and I think that they were about twenty quid back in the UK.

Slideshow 2/5

Almost Famous...

Graumans or Manns as it was later called, the famous Chinese theatre. It was the closest I had been to a “star” with this one being of Clint Eastwood.

Go ahead, make my day…

I had that jacket for years until it literally fell off me.

Slideshow 1/5

A few more images from that great time.

This one during my first visit to Disneyland, during the first two weeks of the tenure in California. I believe I was around 165 lbs back then although you can see that those particular trousers had a limited lifetime as my waist was expanding.

The trip to Disneyland had a flatness about it, no one to share the experience with besides workmates.

No gayness intended

Post PDR at the Ramada Inn, Matt riding rip, snortin, Norton.

PDR

The PDR was what it was all about, it was the T45TS that had brought me to California, to meet all these incredible, diversified people, to open up my small town eyes to a much bigger, and brighter, world.

The PDR was over though, and our original two weeks, that stretched to almost four months, was done. The emotional cost of it all ending was enormous.

I recorded in my diary that I was powerless to stop it and there must be a way to come back, I was tired of wasting my life and yet, I was about to return to the UK with this phase of my life ended clutching a glimmer of hope that my Menasco lifeboat would not sink.

Cullen Brent

The above Cabbage Patch chap is still around all these years later, Nancy presented him to me on the 12th May, 1985

If you look closely, along with the well travelled nose and a soon to be consumed bottled of the cheapest rum Trader Joes had to offer (Trader Joe's was just by Hof's Hut if I recall correctly), Cullen is proudly wearing his Vulcan "Live Long and Prosper" badge.

Beach Boys, part two

The bottle of Budweiser was sitting on the car park by our photographer Ray as Matt and I dropped down as it seemed a suitable time to get back to the Ramada.

I nominated myself to drive, but was in no condition to drive, none of us were. However, things seem simple when there's no one else around, so we jumped in the car and, if I'd had any sense whatsoever, would have ambled out of the car park.

No, I drove around in a couple of circles, trying unsuccessfully to squeal the tires in the Escort sluggo, and accelerated towards the bottle of Bud. I'm not sure if I hit it, but we seemed to come out of the car park onto the main road on two or three wheels.

What happened next was incredible, confusing and frightening, all at the same time.

There were two or three police cruisers around us, lights flashing and short sirens sounding. I stopped the car and almost pulled the key, but just wound my window down.

An officer, standing about two feet from the car, flashlight in his left hand, looked in and said "Is anyone in this vehicle sober?" and for what seemed like a long second or two, we said nothing and then I chirped "I am, I'm the designated driver".

There was an "ok!" moment, and then the officer asked us all to get out of the car and lean against the vehicle, a light search of each of us, a short interrogation and then a search of the car. The cop strolled up to me, a discovered Cocoa Cola can in his hand and through my fisheye lens, he leaned in and asked if there was any cannabis in there.

I refrained from the obvious can of piss joke.

There was a short discussion between the cops that we could not hear, the officer came back and asked where we were staying and how long we were going to be in the country. We only had days left and there appeared to be a communal shrug between them.

I'm sure there was a short sermon, and then the officer asked me to follow him, as we were escorted "in our escort" back to the Ramada Inn, with a highway patrol cruiser in front and one behind us, we drove at 20mph until we arrived safely, a hushed silence in the car.

It was later discovered that the police department was across the road, in direct view of the car park where the UK beach boys tried to surf, they had probably been watching the entire thing and were just waiting for the ambush.

Beach Boys, part one

The three of us, Matt, Ray and myself took a night out from it all and went off to a place called the Black Angus Steak House that was about three miles away from the Ramada Motel.

I think Bob, Frank and Harold had gone off on a bender of their own, and we "young uns" made sure that we went off in the opposite direction.

A normal night, beers of course and a long wait for our steaks, so more beers. In fact it was almost an hour before our meals arrived and we had to do something, so more beers.


There was a group on, and we moved on to the lounge, it was a great laugh after a hard week preparing the PDR stuff, several more beers and a bit of what seemed like a bad impersonation of Graham Central Station on the stage and it was time to go.

The place was almost empty and they sort of asked us to leave, I still had a Budweiser and took it outside into the car park, which was empty, except for our Ford escort Wagon.

Matt and I climbed on the roof, pretended to be surfing while Ray took a photo of the drunken beach boys...

"If everybody had an ocean..."

Bedsit

The Ramada rooms were quite cramped.

Frankie goes to Hollywood

May 10th, 1985


Bob Morris, my boss, and Frank Howell arrive in Long Beach for the PDR presentation. As you can see, it was a bit cold for Frank.

Burning the candle at both ends

May 6th, 1985

The Ramada wasn't all that bad and after a couple of days we settled in, Ray, Matt and myself were driving Harold Sharrock insane at that point as we refused to go out slowly and intensified the party times.

The Monday, which was a bank holiday in the UK, was spent laying out the format for the PDR, we had a couple more guys coming out from the UK for support and it was our job to make the presentation as slick as possible. In later years software such as Powerpoint would make this task easier, however, we were firmly entrenched in the cut and paste era.

Tuesday and Wednesday were twelve hour work days, yet we still managed to eat and drink to excess, and of course, Ray and myself found ample time to schedule the girls in.

Days of Wine and Noses

Ray Norton and Matt Hilliard.

Going Backwards

The preliminary stress report had been compiled and the next milestone was the landing gear preliminary design review, PDR, which was a gauntlet to pass through to achieve a green light from Douglas and the Navy.

It was a very busy time and the end of the "vacation" was a few short weeks away, so APPH did not renew the lease on the apartment and we moved out, installing ourselves in the Ramada Inn.

The Cleveland Pneumatic guys, including my good friend Ray Rapo, were leaving as well, so we went out for a meal with them and the overall mood was good but it felt like there was a lot of closure going down.

The moving from the apartment was the biggest shock though, the facilities at the motel were adequate but the downsizing of our lives and the realization that the party was almost over was starting to set in.

Drama Queen

The following day, I did something that I had not done for eleven years, I drank half a bottle of gin.

I was watching Jeopardy in my shorts and eating cheese nips and squeeze cheez, the gin and limes being replenished every ten minutes or so, Nancy had called earlier in the evening and could not come over, so it just made sense to drink myself into oblivion.

Nobody loves me, everybody hates me, think I'll go and eat worms...

I can't quite piece it together, but much later I decided to go and get in the pool, not the jacuzzi, the swimming pool and was bobbing about for about an hour, it was late and there was no one around except me, I was shivering and just drunk as a skunk.

I had this feeling I was being watched and through my beer googles looked up and there was Nancy, standing like some angel at the side of the pool. I think something in my tone alerted her and she took the time to drive out to see me.

I was glad of the company.

Click

A few days later, the inevitable happened when I called Karen, she was going out with someone else.

I say inevitable because it was five months in the making but the time off from California about a month earlier was just terrible, we argued, I was a swollen headed stranger and my only thought was a quick return to America.

It was the 28th of April and I put the phone down and felt nothing, for a day.

You know men, mate.....like monkeys, they are... won't let go of one branch until they've got hold of the next, I had been hedging my bets and had some global two timing dance going, however, there was a third lover in my life which was America.

As time would show, the feelings were not mutual.

You got Mail

April 23rd, 1985

I arrived back from work at the end of the day, it was a Tuesday and the man behind the desk at Oakwood Apartments said that there was a post office receipt for an express mail package.

That night, Ray Rapo, from Cleveland Pneumatic, invited us to a party, plenty to eat and drink and after a great time Ray Norton and I ended up, drunk as farts, in the Oakwood Jacuzzi at 2.30am.

The next day I went and picked up the letter, which was from Menasco and there it was in black and white, a job offer. I can (sort of) remember the words even now, twenty four years later..

"Menasco have the pleasure in offering you the position of stress analyst on an urgent basis, we request that you complete the requirements for residency as soon as possible"

However, it may have more been like :

"Menasco have the pleasure in offering you the position of stress analyst, the offer is dependant on your meeting immigration requirements and we encourage you to start that process as soon as possible"

or was it...

Stan Jenkins

Rewinding back to the first two weeks in California, the advance team was myself, Edgar Linekar, Jim Baker, Ken Hayter and Stan Jenkins.

The only grainy photo I have of Stan was in a dark area on the Queen Mary, we had lunch there on the first weekend when we were very much tourists.

In an engineering career, you find four or five classy engineers who know what they're doing and also know where they're going. Stan was one of those gentlemen and he surprised me by taking time to advise me, both in those two weeks in California and later, when I had decided to leave the company.

Jacuzzi!

April 14th, 1985


The flight back on the Tuesday the 9th of April was strange, we left at 8.30am and because of the time difference most of the APPH team were sitting in the jacuzzi at Oakwood Apartments, with a beer, at 3.30pm.

The preliminary stress report had to be compiled for Friday and there was one hell of a rush to achieve it, the design team now was Harold, Ray and Matt Hilliard.

Nancy and I picked up where we had left off, time was precious and we took life as it came with a passion.

Paperwork

The first day back at Speke I spent the day saying hello to people, showing off the tan and making phone calls to the American Embassy to establish what forms I needed.

There is no comment in my diary, but I believe that I was instructed to obtain a letter of employment from Menasco, or offer of employment, I'm wasn't sure what the lady at the embassy had said, but in retrospect, I think it was the former.

I phoned Ray Crawley at Menasco and he agreed to send the offer of employment to me at Oakwood Apartments.

It was as simple as that.

Menasco

25th March, 1985

A few days before that flight home, and one of the reasons why I was so affected by things, was an interview at Menasco, Burbank.

It felt like walking around an enlarged APPH factory, they had all the usual shop areas, yet their manufacturing area was set up in a far more automated fashion, I had never seen such a huge milling machine as the Cincinatti Milacron that the stress guy showed me, the shop floor felt vast, the machinery and the facility was very impressive.

I think they were manufacturing the space shuttle nose landing gear and the test facility was equally advanced, instrumentation and data acquisition that we would not have at APPH for years.

The main man was Ray Crawley, the head of the structural group I believe. I took along some of my FEA plots and my T45TS proposal work and the two hour interview went very well, in fact, at the end of the interview he said that they would offer me a job and I should start the process with the consulate in the UK.

It was all about paperwork...

Vacation from Vacation

The news from management was that we were returning to Britain on the 28th March and that some would return to the USA around the 9th April. I was the only structural guy but I started to worry that perhaps I would not return, that somehow it would be over.

The relationship with Nancy had grown and it had become difficult to not be with her, strange as we had such a false start, but there was something about her independant spirit and analytical way of thinking that attracted me to her, besides the physical aspects of it all that is.

In all of this though, I was trying to keep contact with Karen, but things had been off track since December and the Jiminy Cricket thing, the return to the UK at the end of March resulted in even more drama.

In addition, the attitude I exuded strained some of my relationships with old friends, especially as my head had grown so big that it would not fit through doorways any more.

Weekend

March 17th, 1985


The previous night we had been to a drive in movie and watched Witness and the Breakfast Club, today we drove down to Dana Point, watching people fly kites and enjoy their Sunday in the stunning California sun.

Brown Ale, Pie and Peas

Santa Monica, the home of the pier where you could buy a frozen pint of Newcastle Brown ale and the Kings Head where you could eat Cornish Pasty and Peas.

Second Date

It was Tuesday the 5th of March, and I convinced Ray to phone Stacey to arrange a second night with the girls, we were standing in the pool hall at Oakwood Apartments and I was bouncing around behind him and trying to listen to the conversation at the other end.

It was hilarious as the first encounter between Nancy and myself had not gone down too well, I was my usual annoying self and I have a long track record of making a very bad first impression. It seemed that once again that was the way, as I heard someone, that I assumed to be Nancy, in the background saying "nooo, noooo way!"

It was possibly Rays skill that saved the moment as he sort of indicated that we were a double act and could not be split up, in the end, I believe Nancy reluctantly agreed to attend as long as she could keep me at arms length.

The Thursday arrived and we met them at the Jolly Roger, things were pretty cool between me and Nancy, and when I say cool, I mean sort of towards the icy zone. I offered to buy a drink and she insisted on having something called a Mai-Tai which arrived in a huge glass with half a pineapple on the top.

It was fine though, after couple of those hugenesses the evening warmed up, a bit, and we had some fun and a good break from the technical life. A conversation with people that didn't include engineering terms and a feeling that we could be normal for a while.

Plotting

The British Aerospace Structural liaison guy, Ian South, was part of our extended family in Long Beach for a short while, he was there because the T45TS was a derivative of the Hawk Trainer aircraft, made famous by the British aerobatic team, the Red Arrows.

APPH were in on the project because of their association with the Hawk and probably an aggressive proposal, one of the reasons why they would have preferred if we had Kraft dinner for supper instead of a reinforcing steak.

I sat down with Ian and we talked, at length, about the American experience and what we could do about it all, I say "we" because I think that Ian had already pondered the variables and it seemed that the skills that we had obtained from our work experience and engineering qualifications would be more than adequate to secure a job.

That's quite a long sentence to indicate that I thought I would be a "shoe in" whatever that means.

The conversation continued the following day, we talked in O'Keefes by the Marina, then later at Hof's Hut and eventually put the world to rights at the Jolly Roger until the early hours of the following morning, when they had to throw us out.

Attitude Shift

In those first weeks of March, 1985 my attitude changed towards America, it appeared that the people who worked around us in the design office had more focused responsibilities, had a more relaxed way about them and also had a higher standard of living than we British folk.

An example of focused responsibility, in a large company like Douglas, would be a draughstman who was responsible for a certain wing bay including everything that would traverse from one bulkhead to another. However, these responsibilities were supported by secondary MDA wireframe CAD models, constructed by Principal engineers.

Pete Gatehouse was one of these specialists, he would incorporate our landing gear geometry on his "tube" to verify 3D points and also to generate kinematic sweeps of the gear as it retracted.

It was Pete that showed great hospitality to the APPH team and we had several visits to his house for good grub, budweiser and lashings of Chivas Regal. If I compared Pete, and his family, to a similar British one, the American standard of living and engineering status appeared to be a lot higher.

Security Badge

The security badge said Douglas Aircraft at the top and McDonnell Douglas at the bottom. It was customary, if you had one, to wear the pin of the project you were working on.

Red Stripes meant I was an on-site contractor (not at a jobshoppers rate though, unfortunately) and there were certain areas that the wearer of this type of badge would not be allowed into.

Security

Only in America...

I had bought a black "attache" briefcase from Graham Bennett at APPH a week before arriving in California, it was fifteen pounds and he showed me how to change the combination.

In the morning, at the McDonnell Douglas security desk in the lobby of building one, I had to dial my combination in and demonstrate to the security guard that there was nothing dangerous or illegal in the bag. This was no big deal, but you could tell that to the man behind the badge, with the sidearm, it was.

I was unaware that Ray Norton had changed my combination one day and when I tried to leave the building, the usual security check resulted in my inability to open the bag and the guard stated that I could not take it out of the building. I surrendered the bag and it was placed in a secure zone.

The following morning I arrived and explained this to the on duty guard, who retrieved my bag and handed it to me. I turned to walk into the building and he said...

"Could you open the bag please sir?"

It was a catch 22 situation, my bag was trapped in a security nexus, so, I sat in the lobby, grabbed a coffee and indexed through about 600 combinations to finally open my bag an hour later.

...but I did not shoot the deputy

It was around that time that a darker side of the law cropped up, four of us had pulled into a restaurant car park and I was lagging behind somewhat.

I think it was Jim Baker and Edgar who were "in the middle" and their paths coincided with a tall LAPD officer who had just parked his cruiser. Edgar was looking up at the cop and talking about something, while Jim was the other side of the police sandwich, when I noticed something odd.

The cop discretely reached down to his holster and unbuttoned his firearm.

Nothing became of the event, but it seemed that, for some reason, this Magnum sized officer thought, maybe, for a minute, that the portly man in the red cardigan and his gang were going to attempt to take him down.

Malibu

It was Saturday, the 2nd March, 1985 and we decided to drive up to Santa Monica.

On the way, I thought it would be neat to have our picture taken by the Malibu sign, so as we were driving on the Pacific Coast Highway (PCH) I spotted it but missed the turn off.

I stopped the car and reversed something like fifty feet and drove to the sign, within a minute of pulling up an LAPD Highway Patrol car intercepted us and the cop leaned out and said "You got more balls than I have" and told me I was crazy to reverse at all on the PCH.

It was all in good humour, they heard from our accents that we were British and laughed and instructed us to "tell the folks back home that the Malibu police were kind to us"

Anakin arrives

Jim Baker, Edgar Linekar and Ray Norton, February 1985 in the McDonnell Douglas car park. Two Sith lords and their young padawan.

Restaurants, Part Two

It was expected, from the company, that, as we had moved into Oakwood Apartments, the dinner expenses would reduce as we would be feeding ourselves Kraft dinner from the local supermarkets, however, our usually frugal boss on site, Harold, objected quite fiercely to this suggestion.

It was, at times, somewhat of a drag to go out every night, yet we knew that we should be claiming a meal on our expenses and we found many ways to use creative accounting to ensure that we grabbed our per diem, although that figure was never disclosed.

There were places, like the Hyatt Hotel, that did not itemise their printed bills, while others, like the Rusty Pelican, Hof's Hut and Bobby McGees had a small, unfilled, rip off strip at the bottom of their bills that became the basis for a meal expense claim.

The one thing we did find, was that for two or more nights per week, bars in the area would have elaborate happy-hour food specials that we would take full advantage of, and, it was polite to drink their beer while we were eating.

Tapped

The area around the Jolly Roger included a bar that was called Osko's Club Marina, it was a place that had not been attended as there was a five dollar cover charge, in addition, it was barely a place that was suitable for twenty seven years old like myself never mind the "parents".

In retrospect, if the following had not happened at some point, then the young Felix Unger and Oscar Madison of Oakwood apartments may have resorted to gayness and a season ticket to sockless nights and wristwatch demonstrations at the Acapulco bar on Main street.

It was the 1st of March and Ray and myself paid our five bucks and entered a younger world, in terms of night life the place was probably quite tame, however, it felt a little more like a British night out than the usual conservative Jolly Roger fare.

I should compare notes with Ray Norton, but from what I remember a couple of girls were dancing and as they walked past us from the dance floor, I tried to start a conversation with the shorter one.

If the pair of them had any intention of tapping off with the pair of us, I could imagine that the shorter one had, at some point, pointed at me and said to the taller one "I don't fancy yours" because, as I tried to talk to her, that was the impression I strongly received.

Stacey and Nancy, a pair of attractive American girls, were great fun after the initial clumsy ice breaker. Stacey latched onto Ray and Nancy "threw herself on the grenade" and put up with me.

Extended

I believe that our technical and upper management hoped for a short stay, but McDonnell Douglas insisted that an APPH support team was there for the duration, at least until after the PDR which was the much feared "Preliminary Design Review" of the T45TS Main Landing Gear program.

The big wigs, Ken Hayter and Bill Brewer, had probably been told this when they arrived on the 25th of February and avoided their own design team, we heard that they were on site, but we did not see them.

I phoned my girlfriend Karen and she really seemed to be down, those initial two weeks had now stretched to a month and in the next few days would be extended to two, and then only for a brief reprieve in the UK.

In fact, unknown to the pair of us, Ray and myself would be in California until well into October.

Jolly Roger

The Oakwood Apartments were within a reasonable distance from a great pub called the Jolly Roger that became the watering hole of choice for the lads.

Next to me is one of the Cleveland Pneumatic guys, Ray Rapo and to the right, Harold Sharrock, initially our fiscally responsible leader who, as time wore on, enjoyed himslf more...

...and consequently, so did we.

Family Holiday

Things had not been going well, as I indicated in that extended diary entry, California was amazing and fantastic, yet, as the youngest in the group it felt like a bit of a family holiday, traipsing around after the old-uns, fiscal responsibility and common sense everywhere.

The arrival of someone my own age changed things and a sense of freedom returned, although the company was still insisting on stuffing four of us into one hire car.

The Oakwood Apartments added to the newly aquired normality of our tenure, instead of living out of a suitcase in a hotel we had kitchens, couches and a furniture package that made it all feel like home.

I'd previously stated in my diary that "I wanna go home" although "I'll suffer it another few weeks, just for the weekend excursions" and that was all about to change as gradually, the magic of a younger feeling California stole my heart and almost my soul from me.

Tuesday, 12th February, 1985

As written, no change to spelling or grammar...

"I'm sitting in the T45TS Design Office at the moment with a cup of Hill's Bros coffee in front of me (extra lightener - yak). Edgars just told me he's been to the bog downstairs, which I'm sure is interesting if you're into that sort of thing.

We drove in (I drove the big fat 3.8 litre, automatic Mercury Marquis) from Oakwood Apartments in Seal Beach to Douglas Aircraft Corporation in Long Beach, California at about 7.45 this morning, with Kiss FM (KIIS 102.7) on the radio.

The DJ who is on that time of the morning is called Rick Dees, and he is a scream, the music is good too but Jim Baker keeps turning it down.

I'm going to pick Ray Norton up in about three hours time, from LAX (Los Angeles International Airport), it's a straight forward drive, down Interstate 405.

He's going to share the apartment (E-219) with me and should have a bit more life about him (compared with my previous playmates, Stan Jenkins then Harold Sharrock). Harold had a habit of just barging into my room without knocking, which I am definitely not used to.

I should have more in common with Ray however, and that should relieve my homesickness - nearly everything I do, which is not connected to work, seems to be a bit 'hollow', for example, on Sunday we went to Disneyland, which was great but it would have been a lot better if Karen had been there.

However, this won't last forever and I'll probably never get another chance to play about in California, So I'll make the most of it, Chow!"

Bloody Tourists

In those first few months, besides working on the T45, we enjoyed a lot of what Southern California had to offer, the Queen Mary was parked in Long Beach harbour and it was an early visit to what had essentially become a floating restaurant.

In a dome across the bay, the Howard Hughes "Spruce Goose" was an enormous aviation marvel and a group of us went to see it. I am amazed that I didn't take a photograph of it, but that may have been restricted.

Restaurants

The photo with the crowd of people, from the first few weeks in California, was taken in a bar called Legends. As a group of predominantly British people, we developed a good relationship with the ex-pat owner and his generosity towards the group was a unique experience.

It was self promotion, sure, yet in the UK I cannot recall being "comped" in any way whatsoever in a pub or a restaurant, this man not only bought a round of drinks for the group several times, on other occasions he covered the entire meal or provided us with basketball tickets to see the LA Clippers.

I enjoyed the array of restaurants, probably too much as my diary constantly refers to worry or comments about my weight.

Hof's Hut was a particular favourite, besides the way that the waitresses dressed, the food was enormous and good, huge onion rings, massive burgers and excellent value. The distraction in Hof's was the young ladies, they all wore sparkly tights and a prerequisite of employment must have been the length of their legs and the size of their boobs, healthy Californian girls serving unhealthy food to a learing audience.

More in the next blogs...

Beach Bum

I have to include this photo as it shows the "boombox" that became my pride and joy in California and had a checkered career long after that.

Frank Braun

I was installed on site, in building one, which if you had a visitor pass and could park where we did, wasn't all that bad. If you did not have that pass, travelling from your car park spot could be a short bus commute.

The security desk, complete with sidearmed McDonnell Douglas policepersons, was a daily gauntlet, it was a show and tell event and your bag would be inspected for potential smuggled secrets, I have a story about that, but later...

The design manager on our job was a well respected chap called Willie Boehringer, his immediate supervisor was Cecil Cooke. I have a story about them, but again, later...

I was lead stress analyst on the T45 Main Landing gear, in fact, I was the only analyst from APPH, however, we had some help and one of the structural guys I had the great pleasure to work with was Frank Braun.

Frank was the first ever American jobshopper I had met, besides my old friends Mark Charnock and Dave Bullen who had left APPH to join DATS as contractors in the UK, here was one that I worked directly with, and he was an education. I was soon aware that several more coworkers in our office were contractors and I yearned for their level of responsibility.

Jobshoppers are not irresponsible, it is just that to survive, they will do as they are told. In fact, sometimes to an annoying degree. However, if you tell a contractor to paint it pink, he will, in fact, paint it pink.

Even if it does not make sense to paint it pink.

Frank was an excellent worker, and he completed work that he was tasked to do, however, he did it with the relaxed style that only a true hourly paid jobshopper could.

He taught me a lot.

E.F.Bruhn

I've had a think about it, and the year 1985 is so important that I'll spend some extra time on telling stories on the blog and not feel rushed to get on with later years, if I look at how much time I have spent pontificating about my married years, it seems that the story would be lobsided without some dedicated blogging to the life changing experiences of California.

The previous year, and my training in FEA, had given me a good headstart in understanding what stress analysis was all about, benchmarking some of the FEA results had given me the chance to learn about how stresses combine and it was very evident that the Americans knew a lot more about that.

In fact, McDonnell Douglas had their own structural handbook, something of a bible of discovered facts that was available in their "public domain" library and, in addition, it seemed that everyone who was worth their analytical salt had a copy of a book by a chap called Bruhn.

It was called Analysis and Design of Aircraft Structures and my second or third weekend in California was spent in search of my own copy.

The Likely Lads

Ray Norton, Dave Weldon, Matt Hilliard in the car park at McDonnell Douglas Aircraft Company, Long Beach, California.