Profile, David (Geordie) Rose

When we were preparing to leave RAF Cosford I applied for North of England, South of Scotland, RAF Boulmer and Acklington as postings. Yes, you've guessed it, I was posted to RAF High Wycombe, HQBC, in Buckinghamshire. It turned out to be a great posting as it was Swinging Sixties and entering the Flower Power era. I had a great time but started to get a bit fed up toward the end of a two year Key Personnel Screening stint. I did not go abroad until July 1968 when I went to RAF Masirah.

I was in Masirah for the customary 13 month tour with a month at home in the middle. I got to thinking about where to go next and Singapore was preparing to close down. I thought it would be my last chance to get to the Far East so I applied to extend my tour to Hong Kong or Singapore.

It was accepted and I arrived at RAF Seletar in October 1969 (The numbers don't add up for the time I spent in Masirah but that is another story!).

After Masirah, Seletar was like being transported to another planet and I loved it. The place is full of fantastic times, smells, food, beer and mates. Anyone heard of John 'Wink' Allington? John and I were great friends and sailed and drank together for the two years I was there.

While in Singapore three of us took the train to Butterworth, in Malaysia, and caught the ferry across to Penang for a couple of weeks vacation. Many stories to tell of the train journey and times in Georgetown but I would like to keep them for a reunion. Suffice to say the train journey involves lots of Merrydown Cider after starting the day with a brewery trip to Anchor and the New Wah Seng 'hotel' figures in the Penang stories.

Left Singapore, after moving accommodation blocks a couple of time to let the Singapore Armed Forces take over the camp and closing down Seletar Commcen. This was in February 1971 and I was on my way to RAF Boddington, with the domestic site at Innsworth in Gloucester.

I was only there for a few months and got posted to RAF Luqa in September 1971 - Gerry, I was obviously there at the same time as you but you were working on the Canberra's while I was guarding the bloody things after the El Fatah threats!!!! The relay centre was temporarily in the terminal commcen with re-perfs on trestle tables. We just could not cope at times and whole bunches of tapes of Routine messages would go into the bin. It was quite a relief when the refurbished relay centre opened at Siggewi. The reason for this was, of course, I arrived in Malta as we were returning after being kicked out first time.

Had a fantastic time in Malta during which I did a lot of sailing and even more drinking. Favourite haunt was the 'Fog Lamp' in Burzibugga but I had a flat in Marsascala at the end of the bay. Local bar in Marsascala was the 'Coxswains Cabin', at that time run by an Englishman and his ex Television Toppers wife.

I found myself back in Boddington again early 1973 on promotion to Corporal. I spent a bit longer this time and met my wife, Marlane, in December 1974 and got married in May 1975. Anyone know Sgt Ziggy Zegveld? Well, he is my father-in-law and still going strong. He is actually a great bloke to have as a father-in-law.

Two weeks after getting married I was in Gan and did more sailing and drinking and even had a trip to Sri Lanka to sail against the British High Commission. There was also a sailing trip to Cyprus for the NEAF championships. I never did a tour of Cyprus but it looked great for the four days I was there.

1976 and after closing down the Termite Commcen in Gan I was posted to RAF Rudloe Manor and my wife and we fell in love with the village of Colerne and Bath itself. That was really when our married life began and it was nice to be away from everyone to get to know each other. We have not done too badly, 27 years later we are still going strong.

While at Rudloe Manor we discussed where we should think about settling down because I was due out in November 1978. I applied for last tour of duty to Boddington and we now live in Gloucester.

In November 1977 my son, Daniel was born. He is now (2003) 25 years old with a BA Hons in Art and Design and Combined Studies. He works for an Internet hosting company in Gloucester, Fasthosts, and is a fine man who I am really proud of. He was offered three unconditional entrances to universities for 2002 to do an IT with Education degree, as he wanted to teach IT. Events take over though and a new BMW Mini and his own flat sounded like a much better option!!!!!!

All my life I have been around Uncles who have been lorry drivers and it is something I always wanted to do so, just before I met my wife I had taken three weeks vacation and spent it on an HGV driving course. It was fantastic and at the end of my 12 years I did my resettlement working for a metal forming company in Cheltenham shunting trailers into the loading bay, sheeting them up and taking them out to the yard for the drivers to take out to customer sites for delivery. I got really great at reversing 40-foot trailers!

I did a year and a half with 'Roadline' night trunk driving forty footers between Gloucester - Reading, Gloucester - Manchester, Gloucester - Northampton and a couple of trips to Muswell Hill. My main route was to Reading and back; little did I know that I would do this route a great deal more in the future when I worked in Maidenhead and lived in Gloucester!

After 18 months I realised that I was never going to get anywhere lorry driving, not much in the way of promotion, like the RAF really!

Matters were taken out of my hands with redundancy. As I had not been there long I got no redundancy package at all but I was lucky enough to walk out of Roadline on the Friday and into Rank Xerox computer department on the Monday. I was really lucky as this got me back into a computer environment, which is what communications is all about now anyway.

My three-month temporary contract with Ranks, in Mitcheldean Forest of Dean, stretched to six months. I had already been for an interview, and been accepted, for a job with Lockheed Aircraft in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, to teach the Saudi Air Force on the ADX6400 message switching system, same as the one at Boddington.

I spent two years on a bachelor contract but Lockheed would not entertain an accompanied contract. Three months from the end of my Lockheed contract I was offered a position with a company called Haji Abdullah Alireza who had a communications company called GENTEC. They had a contract to install and maintain the worldwide comms for the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I accepted and spent 7 weeks in San Francisco with ROLM Corporation to learn installation and maintenance of the ROLM CBX PABX systems, 1 week at Chloride in Eastleigh for the power systems and 4 weeks at Marconi in Chelmsford to learn the ins and outs of their message switching system. The seven weeks in San Francisco were unforgettable and it has to be my favourite city in the world.

I spent a bit longer in Chelmsford to carry out factory testing as I was the one in the company with the message switching experience.

July 1984 saw me back in Saudi but Jeddah this time. I looked after the Ministry, with Philippino engineers, until the new Ministry was opened in Riyadh. My wife and Daniel joined me in September 1984. We had a great time in Jeddah and made some great friends of the Americans on the compound where we lived. We would go to Rabigh at the weekend to a deserted beach with fantastic seabed and coral.

Daniel was 7 at this time and was at the Continental School in Jeddah when Marlane became pregnant. Johanna (pronounced with a Y as it is from the Dutch) was born in October 1985. A month later Marlane was pregnant again, God knows how but the Saudi's I worked with were very impressed!.

During this pregnancy the Project Manager in Riyadh left the company to retire and the Ministry asked for me to go to Riyadh to run the maintenance project and ensure the Message Switch kept going.......

We moved to a magnificent house in Riyadh and Julia was born in August 1986. So there is 2 months when my daughters are the same age (they are now 15 and 16).

Daniel sat the common entrance exam in Riyadh and got a place at a Grammar school in Gloucester so we thought it was time to go home. With Daniel at his grandparents to start school in September (Marlane was there for him starting) I tendered my resignation and we left in November 1989 to return to the UK.

No job to come home to so it was a bit of a gamble. We had not saved any money but had a great six years of family life in Saudi.

Marlane spotted an advertisement in the Daily Mail and I applied for a job as a Technical Instructor with Nortel Networks. I was lucky enough to be offered the job and started in January 1990.

I spent the next 8 years with training and travelled to do on site training at our distribution channels in Cairo (3 times), Damascus, Beirut, Dubai, Abu Dhabi (twice), Stockholm, Munich, Paris, Moscow, Comsomolsk (Ukraine), and attended a weeks training myself in Dallas.

I moved to a new position in December 1998 and really enjoy what I am now doing. I look after BT (UK), Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Greece, Cyprus, Jersey and a few other companies in the UK. The job is to ensure that our distributors are ready and capable to accept our new products. They have to have training, support and all marketing functions in place before I will authorise the products to ship to that country. I have built up a great relationship with the people in these companies and often travel to Istanbul, Dubai, Jeddah and Riyadh to discuss business.

Like all Telecommunications companies Nortel have been through a bad patch with a reduction in the workforce from 100,000 to 35,000 worldwide. So far I have managed to avoid the axe, probably because I work at home and no-one noticed me !!!!!!!!!

Julia and Johanna still live at home but with Daniel moving out to his own flat in Gloucester we have managed to turn the small bedroom into a dedicated office. I travel to BT meetings in Maidenhead (Nortel offices), Birmingham, Brentwood and London so I get out of my office, and home, 4 or 5 days a month apart from the occasional trips mentioned above.

Travelled to Tasmania in January 2002 for our nieces wedding. Long trip but it was great to fly into Singapore again after 30 years even if it was only for a couple of hours.

What Next? - Hang on for retirement in 2013, unless I have a lucky break and manage to retire early.