Born in Chatham (Kent. UK) in May 1956 to Mary and Denis Barrett, My father was a disciplinarian (fair but firm) and kept me on the straight and narrow most of my youth, my mother provided the warmth and affection that all families have. Quite bright but frustrated and impatient at school I didn't achieve my potential and left school with a few certificates to seek excitement in the outside world.

A childhood fascination with the military soon led me to join the Royal Navy as an Electrical Technician and went to sea to serve. Unfortunately a childhood illness came back to haunt me 'Asthma' after 3 years in the navy and I was discharged to find my way in civilian life. I had seen the navy as promising career and I was devastated by this and wandered quite aimlessly for a few years, selling cars and motorbikes until I joined Marconi who had a use for my electro-mechanical talents learnt in the RN, repairing guidance systems for helicopters, jets and weapons.

During these years I married and my wife Carol and I started a family and brought our first home. In the early 80's the first computers were finding there way onto the consumer market where as a keen radio amateur (G6DYJ) I wondered if they could be used for communications over the radio, some experiments with rtty and amtor lead to an interest in programming. Self taught but quite competent I applied to join the sandwich computer science course sponsored by my then employers Marconi.

They refused my application, even after being awarded a significant prize for innovative working practices after interfacing a small home computer to a microscope used to automate the measuring of tape tracks for the flight recorder of a military aircraft.

I left Marconi and applied to further education directly where I started a 2 year BTEC HND Industrial Data Processing course, while I was keeping a family and mortgage going. It was Ironic that my father a Data Process Manager with a large Transport Company had almost begged me to go to work with him to learn Data Processing (as it was known in those days, the mid to late 70's) Here I was almost full circle 20 years later doing exactly what my father had suggested I do when I left school.

I really enjoyed my time at college, feeling a little out of my depth on a couple of the subjects and with students 15 years younger I had to work quite hard to fit in, several months of extra tutorials got me back on track from my CSE arithmetic to the advanced level Maths I needed for the course, the rest was fun and while not always easy was always interesting. I passed my assignments and exams with flying colours. Having left school early, getting back into education makes you feel its an opportunity not to be missed and one that shouldn't be wasted with failure.

I had thought about topping up the HND to a full degree and found a course at South Bank Poly and gained entrance for the extra year I needed to complete, unfortunately with a mortgage and family, plus 1 extra now I needed to find work and pay back some of my student loans.

Strangely Marconi in Portsmouth offered me an opportunity to use my newly qualified talents and the family and I moved back to Portsmouth, an area familiar to me as ex Royal Navy. I spent the next 10 years at Marconi/EASAMS in Portsmouth adding another child to the family and moving from software engineer to Operations Manager. I learnt to scuba dive and later became a scuba instructor, diving year round around the UK, the Red Sea and Mediterranean.

I moved from Marconi when they relocated to Cambereley in Surrey to IBM at Winchester but spent most of my time at North Harbour, Portsmouth. Since being made redundant by IBM I have been making a living as a self employed contractor, consultant and engineer making my living doing almost anything in the IT world I can practically turn my hand to.