It was a very round-about route
that led me to work in the countryside. Following a degree in Social Science I
was looking for employment, not really sure what that employment was to be, but
work of some sort. The company that my father worked for needed an
administrative assistant in the computer department for three months, and as I
had nothing else lined up I jumped at the chance. As it turned out I was to be
there for three years, and reach the dizzy heights of support analyst. Anyway,
as time went by the job and I grew apart. New equipment and increases in
automation meant less time out of the office fixing things, and meeting people,
so I departed.
But what was I to do? Being a
lover of all things countryside and wildlife oriented, I visited a Wildfowl and
Wetlands Trust site. On their volunteer vacancy board was an advertisement for
a computer engineer. So my apprenticeship in the countryside began.
I started out by networking the
computer systems, but got more involved in children’s activities, such as badge
making and face painting. Then there was the spring-time work in the “duckery,”
looking after the new born fowl. This basically involved cleaning them out,
feeding them and replacing the water in their little ponds.
