[BITList] About Tom in Gympie

[Tom Gardiner]

Hi Colin et al.
You asked to know more about us . Hope this ( all about me) is not too 
much .

I posted a bit about living here a while ago .
To recap Gympie is a small town of about 14,000 with about 17,000 living 
in the rest of the shire .
( too idle to log on and get accurate numbers ) We are in the sub 
tropics half way up the east coast of Oz .
How did I end up here . Just the way life worked out I guess . Life has 
tended to direct me in it's own direction., and I guess I haven't 
resisted too strongly .

As a child I lived in various places in England as my grandparents and 
parents were relocated .
Born in Saltend , Kingston upon Hull Schooled in Eccles Lancs. Cleveleys 
Lancs , Fareham Hants,
Apprenticeship with Thornycrofts Southampton . Tech studies at So'ton Uni .
Then to B I . for two spells .
Junior on Durenda Chindwara, 4th Chilka, 3rd Chilka , ( only for a Blink 
on ) Itria ,Uganda
2nd on Purnea , ex 2nd Chandpara ( another blink ) 2nd Dwarka .
then back to UK on Palikonda as 2 nd . ( yes ,I know she was a steamship.)

Worked in a drawing office for a few years then as Shift Super in petrol 
chemical plant for a few more.
Quit to join small company making poly bags .
Bad move . Joined Nigerian Ports Authority and meandered around all 
small rivers around Lagos with the bouyage vessel . Would you believe I 
was the only one who could use the Oxy cutter ?
Aimed for jobs with power generation in Nigeria . but foot dragging made 
me look around .
Found a job in Canada making plastic bottles . Applied for immegration 
and was accepted , moved to Quebec City
A bad business move on my part as the job lasted five weeks .
Spent a winter as Repair Super with Davies shipbuilding in Lauzon , 
across the river from Quebec City .
Joined a small company near Sherbrooke Quebec as plant engineer .
Quite enjoyable , looking out of the windows one could see the cows 
grazing .
However the company was sold and the parent company transferred to 
Sarnia . Ontario. where I settled in the tech service area Being an 
American Company , a periodic purge of over 35's saw me moving along .

With my contacts from tech service I found a couple of passable jobs 
back in Quebec and finally ended up as Plant engineer of an injection 
moulding company .
However the provincial government were getting concerned that Greek and 
Italian immegrants were selecting the English school system . In order 
to boost pupils to the Catholic system a law was passed to force 
children into the Catholic school system if the parents had not attended 
the English school system in Quebec .
I had 5 children attending various levels of schooling .So !!! I made 
plans .

We decided to look at emigrating to Australia .
I discoverd an Australian company who were having a machine built in 
Canada and was accepted as their representative . To shorten the story . 
It was a con job and I told the boss the facts .saving him much money.
He assisted my immegration application and my family and I flew over .

I was engaged as Plant Engineer with a plastic bottle company .
A great job with lots of autonomy and interesting challenges .
However inflation was unforgiving and I still had family 
responsibilities. so after several years in the job I quit and bought a 
retail business .
After three years of my wife and I working our whatsits off we sold and 
moved to Queensland . Staying in the selfemployed catagory we did well . 
I was able to supplement our business income with a few engineering 
contracts. One managing an upgrading and the other catching up the 
missed work following a start up .

Our business for the last 15 years was in horticulture
Growing carnations , cherry tomatoes and finally strawberries
Using hydroponic techniques for all .
We tapered down our growing production about five years ago and 
continued with our market stall until last year .

My wife Jean and I have our own computers . We have VOIP for our 
telephone and Skype for family contact .
Hobby wise I teach computers to seniors and up to last year was active 
in amateur theatre .

I omitted to mention that one consideration in emigrating here was free 
education at all levels .
Our kids took advantage of that and we are proud .

Did not reaslise how much I have written .
I could have said simply that I went to sea for 5 years , Worked 25 
years in the plastics business and 15 years in hydroponic horticulture .

However I shall leave it and possibly generate some future posts .

Certainly would not meet with J P s criteria for the BI site <grin>

Cheers

Tom in Gympie