How Green was my Wood

Well, this is it, my inaugural post on my new blog and I'm going to start with some sad news from my neighbourhood; a murder of an as yet unnamed person at the railway station a few hundred metres from my home this morning. I don't know if the problems of inner East London are moving ever outwards but with events over recent years it certainly feels that way to me.

But I don't want to dwell on news that will be easy to follow on the internet, with this post and maybe one or two further I hope to introduce myself a bit better, contemplate my reasons for starting a blog in the first place and hopefully interest at least somebody enough that they will return to read more of my posts.

My name is Robert or Rob for short and I'm nearly 52, a native of Romford. If that sounds a bit like the opening line of a dating profile I should warn you that I don't do Americans; they're all over paid, over sexed and unfortunately not over here. 

I was a youth of the milk snatcher era which worked out fine for us in Essex as much as she is still loathed in other parts of the country. I had friends who stood shoulder to shoulder with the print workers against Rupert Murdoch but who then went on to well paid jobs in the City as thousands of others of us did. If you want to know what it was like starting work here back then listen to the songs '22 Grand Job' by The Rakes and 'Born Slippy' by Underworld (Darren Emerson was a friend of a friend of a friend).

Back then I fancied myself as a proper Romford Boy; I had the gold Sovereign ring, the gold bracelet, chain and earings. Oh! and a dodgy ponytail. I drank in the Bitter End, played pool with the market traders in the Bull on a Saturday afternoon and the Morland Arms remains the only pub to this day I've ever seen a fight at 11.30 in the morning in.

I also managed to get a modest degree in Economics from a red brick university, lived for a time in Australia, saw the Queen and met James Bond (Roger Moore) and saw the Pogues with Shane MacGowan at the Brixton Academy.

Still in my 20's and 30's I sailed accross the Atlantic Eastward From Bermuda on a 37' yacht and became an asylum landlord before selling everything and spending the next 5 years living on a 30' Halmatic and sailing all over the Mediterranean.

All of this was against a background of my own underlying depression, alcoholism and mental health problems which started at University. But more of that in other posts. This blog is not merely an excuse for me to vent my rage or self pity on an already suspecting audience (after this paragraph at least!), I intend to cover any and every topic I find of interest from the stock market to art, music and the media, travel, boot sales, politics and general interest. I hope you will find me humerous, serious, irreverant, empathetic and compassionate.

Most of all I hope you will return to read more.