Update

It was during this time that I passed my Higher National Certificate in Mechanical Engineering at Wigan Mining and Technical College, along with my good friend Paul Martin.

The recession was in full swing and to keep myself sane I enrolled at Edge Hill College in Ormskirk, a teacher training facility, I secured a small grant which seemed like enough to get by on (it wasn't) and started work at a credit checking agency in Skelmersdale, a night job, three or four nights a week.

I was involved with the canoe club at college and was having great fun there, enrollment at the college was in August or September and the ratio of women to men was about seven to one, I believe in the few months before I met Karen, I had my seven.

I'm not showing off there, it was just that my entire way of life had suddenly changed, and just because there was a throng of women in my life did not make it fantastic, in fact, in some ways something about me was very broken.