Crossing the Golden Gate Bridge
So many great times in my life. One of them was spending 7 weeks in Santa Clara, about 40 miles South of San Francisco, January & February 1984.
We had a hire car, an Oldsmobile, I think the model was a 1983 Cutlass. Training with ROLM Corporation, which was taken over by Siemens and IBM.
There were 7 of us telecom engineers with varying skills. Mine was Message Switching systems, others were Telephone systems, one had a lot of power systems experience and knowledge.
We all helped each other out on the various courses we attended. I, being the message switching guy, helped the others with 'homework' when we attended a month of training at Marconi College in Chelmsford, in turn the others filled my knowledge gaps in when we were at ROLM for the telephone PABX systems etc. And there was also a couple of weeks at Chloride power systems in Eastleigh, Hampshire.
It was all in preparation for our roles installing and maintaining these various systems around the world for the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I started in Jeddah at the consulate, but also travelled to Riyadh a lot when the Marconi system arrived for installation. Others were based at Embassies in Washington DC, London, Dakar, Islamabad and Singapore. After a couple of years the American project manager resigned and the Ministry director of communications asked me to move to Riyadh to take over the role, which was responsibility for the whole shebang! It was an interesting, and often quite exciting, job.
It meant we all had to move, My wife Marlane, Son Daniel (6 at the time), Daughter Johanna (approaching 1 after being born in Jeddah) and Julia - (flying, but not yet yet born), she was born about 5 months later in Riyadh.
Extra is of us in Riyadh 1987. Those children are now 46, 38 and 37 (yes, 11 months between Johanna and Julia!). And me - with HAIR!!
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