'all men dream: but not equally. those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes, to make it possible. this i did.'  a long, long time ago, timmy loveless was at school, southgate secondary modern, it was where you were sent when you had failed your eleven plus exam at primary school, socially streamed for a life of manual labour, semi-skilled or at best an apprenticeship in engineering in one of the local 'work's', british rail, international combustion, celanese, rolls royce, ley's malleable castings or one of the numerous specialist engineering company's that supplied the 'big boy's', i can't say i really enjoyed school, i was a fat, short sighted kid, no good at games, math's or science subject's, i lived for getting in the metalwork shop, i loved it, making garden forks, using basic hand tools , learning to use a hacksaw, how to put the blade in the right-way-round, [don't laugh, i see it everyday in my job], using files, marking out work using engineers blue, reading a micrometer, my metalwork teacher was a legend, he made a minature model steam train in his dinnertimes using the schools facilities, it made a lasting impression on me, i used to go and 'help' him, he used to let me rough out work using my basic skill's, i always remember the time he let me loose on a lathe for the first time, apart fom the metalwork classes i wasn't very good at anything else and found everything but history and geography a bore especially english, that all changed when we had to read 'seven pillars of wisdom' by t.e.lawrence, lawrence of arabia, i couldn't wait for the next lesson, the class had to read a paragraph or so each in the lesson, i was totally transfixed with the story...........

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