The Drone Theory: Malaysian Airlines MH370 (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781519516367)

I am eighty-two, and this is my first book. I have had a very interesting and varied career which has given me lots of material for writing, so hopefully, lots more books! I started off at age eighteen working down the pit (coal mine). I worked on the coal face in Stoke-on-Trent in the UK and for my age earned a fantastic wage. But it was very hard work. I then went to the University of Nottingham to study mining and got a B.Sc in Mining Engineering. After graduating I was enrolled in the National Coal Board's management training scheme working for the National Coal Board as a 'Directed Practical Trainee' (D.P.T), terminology that could have come straight from Mao's Little Red Book. I then became a Shot Firer and then a Deputy. Then there came the pit closures. What seemed a disaster led to new careers, I trained as a Work Study Engineer for Joseph Lucas in Birmingham and this led to jobs in the gas industry, local government and then a position in Fiji in 1970 working for the P.W.Department. It was here that I made very good friends with some of the Fijian Indians, descended from indentured labourers, both Hindus and Muslims. I have drawn on the experience of these friendships for the positive aspects of this book. My wife and I had three young children when we went there, the youngest six months, but it was great for them and us in Fiji. On returning to the UK in 1980 after a few temporary jobs I got employment with Balfour Beatty Construction, one of the largest construction companies in the world. But after five years I was made redundant. Again this led to lots of interesting contracting assignments back with my Work Study hat on, and then in 1991 I started my own technical recruitment company. On retirement in 2005 I commenced a full time course at the local college - Northbrook in Worthing, 'Music Composition for the Professional Media'. Here I learnt to compose music. I graduated in 2008 with a University of Brighton B.A. My career was in engineering. I think now I should have been in the media. We live in a very small village in the South Downs and I ended up writing the news for our village in the Parish Magazine. I found that I enjoyed it, and rightly or wrongly I decided that I would like to write more. So here I am now, a budding author. When I was young my dad bought me a portable typewriter and I learnt to touch type. When computers came in I honed this skill, which is proving to be a tremendous asset in writing.