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Hobbies and Interests / Moto Guzzi / Motorcycles

Task: Sort out the brakes

I’m not sure that I can claim to have achieved this.  When I dismantled the bike, I removed the three discs (2 on the front wheel and one at the…

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2 March 2026
Hobbies and Interests / Moto Guzzi / Motorcycles

Task: Re-assemble the engine to the gearbox

This isn’t a trivial piece of work.  If you’ve replaced the clutch, for example, you can use part of the old one as a tool to centralise the clutch on…

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2 March 2026
Hobbies and Interests / Moto Guzzi / Motorcycles

Task: Sort out the suspension

Suspension isn’t too complex a topic, at least to start with.  In the Guzzi, the front forks have springs and an internal damper.  You can buy improved, variable-rate springs, and…

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2 March 2026
Hobbies and Interests / Moto Guzzi / Motorcycles

Task: Mount the rear numberplate

Thie was a late task. I hadn’t figured that itought to be complicated, but I did know that I’m not a fan of numberplates that sit to the side of…

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2 March 2026
Hobbies and Interests / Moto Guzzi / Motorcycles

Task: Build a seat-hump

I realised that the seat would need to be replaced, and I liked the idea of a rear seat-hump.  I also had an idea that creating an angled one would…

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2 March 2026
Hobbies and Interests / Moto Guzzi / Motorcycles

Task: Repaint the fuel tank

I was lucky; the fuel tank was undamaged when I bought the bike.  However, I had to repaint it because the original colour simply didn’t match the new frame colour. …

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2 March 2026
Hobbies and Interests / Moto Guzzi / Motorcycles

Task: Upgrade the binnacle warning lights

I didn’t know whether or not the warning lights worked, but decided anyway to replace them with more reliable and brighter LEDs.  There are several warning lights: Neutral indicator (green),…

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2 March 2026
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Recent Posts

  • The Seat
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  • Task: Re-assembly

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Maria Ramirez

At vix patrioque scribentur at fugitertissi ext scriptaset verterem molestiae
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It's hard to summarise a whole career in a few short, pithy paragraphs. I'm sorry - this goes on a bit.

Education

My schooling was patchy in quality, but consistent in approach. Primary schooling was at State schools, and then at eleven I was dispatched to a boarding school. I'd classify it (well, as it was then) as a sort of 'boarding comprehensive' - an all-boys school with secondary-modern and Grammar school streams, and established for the benefit of 'sons of Royal Naval personnel'. There was an entrance examination, giving an impression of academic competition, but I think it was really for the purpose of streaming new boys into academic streams. Having said that, my youngest brother 'failed' the entrance exam and so went to a very different school. I have an (unfounded, I'm sure) impression that the entrance exam formed part of the package of information that advised entrance and streaming. Suffice to say that I turned up in January 1968 at The Royal Hospital School, near Ipswich in Suffolk, streamed in the 'X' stream (the lower of the two Grammar streams in the school - the other was the 'U' stream, where one might have an expectation of proceeding from school to University) with my elder brother (and eldest sibling) already installed, three academic years ahead of me. My elder sister, being a girl, was excluded - she was educated at whichever local comprehensive school was close to home. My younger brother joined just over two years later, so he was three academic years below me. I wasn't a success at school. At the end of my first term I came resoundingly bottom of the class. So, in keeping with established tradition, I was demoted to the next stream down ('A'), where I came bottom again. So, I started my second year in class 2B2 - the lowest stream in the school, where the expectation was, I think, that I'd simply muddle along until I was about 16 and then would proceed into some lowly job or another. This wasn't to be, though, since I managed in the summer of my second year to clamber back up to the 'A' stream, where I stuck - somewhere towards the top of the class, but never high enough to be restored to the 'X' stream where I'd started. As was normal, we had to select academic 'options' to proceed to examination with, when I dropped History, Geography, Woodwork and Biology. So, in 1974, I sat Certificate of Secondary Education (CSE) exams in Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, French, Metalwork, Technical Drawing, English Language and English Literature. I achieved what I thought was a very creditable result - six Grade Ones and one Grade Two (French), which allowed me to progress to the sixth form to do a set of 'O' levels. After another school year, I was the proud(ish) holder of a set of seven 'O' levels, and then I progressed to the 'proper' sixth form to do three 'A' levels - Maths, Physics and Chemistry. It was during this time that I attended to Admiralty Interview Boards, hoping to win a place at Dartmouth as a Naval Officer. I didn't get the place I'd hoped for, but at the end of the year I did manage to pass my 'A' levels and to went on to Queen Mary College, London University in September 1976 to read for a degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering. It was during my first term at University that I received a surprise letter that invited me to join the Britannia Royal Naval College at Dartmouth the following January. I was to serve about 20 years in the Navy as an Aircraft Engineer, before leaving to join a software engineering company in Bath.

The Navy

After training, (you might want to look at the Navy part of the blog), I took up my first appointment as a fully qualified Air Engineer Officer (AEO). This was 1982 and I was the Deputy AEO of 737 Naval Aircraft Squadron (NAS) at Royal Naval Air Station (RNAS) Portland. The squadron had 2 ship's flights on board HMS Antrim and HMS Glamorgan and both were despatched to the Falklands war

737 NAS closed at the end of 1982 and I was then appointed to 810 Squadron at Culdrose, as the Sea Flight AEO. Like 737, 810 was a training squadron; it carried out the last part of flying training for RN pilots and Observers specalising in ant-submarine operations, using the Sea King Mk 5 helicopter. What this meant for me was that I would embark with 3 helicopters and 50-odd maintainers on board the Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA) whip Engadine for 6 weeks at a time, for the young aircrew to finish their training with a period afloat. I served on 810 Squadron for the whole of 1983.

My next appointment was to the london-based RN Schools Presentation Team (RNSPT). The RNSPT toured the UK, visiting secondary schools throughout the nation with a Wessex Mk 5 helicopter. After treating the school to a short flying display, we would then repair to the school hall, where we would give a half-hour presentation about why the nation has a Navy and what it does. This was intended as part of the VI form's General Studies programme, but as the team was funded by the Department for Naval Recruitment (DNR) you can guess the motivation. I worked on the RNSPT for 2 tours, and I visited about 100 schools between July 1984 and March 1986.

After my time with the RNSPT, I was pleased to return to a FAA establishment, HMS Daedalus, where I worked as Radar Projects Officer for the Naval Air Technical Evaluation Centre (NATEC), where I was responsible for sorting issues with the support of in-servide airborne radars, and with reliability and maintenance aspects of new radar developments. I worked at the NATEC for 2 years, between June 1986 and March 1988.

From NATEC, I was appointed to the staff of the Flag Officer Naval Aviation (FONA), where I was responsible for the day-to-day arrangements of engineering training - both trade training and pre-joining training, the preparation and execution of which was delegated to the Air engineering School at HMS Daedalus, and to the engineering training schools at RN Air Stations. I worked at FONA between 1988 ad 1990). I was promoted to Lieutenant Commander during this time.

I worked at the Aircraft & Armament Experimental Establishment at Boscombe Down for 2 years(1990 - 1992), where I led the small Software Validation team in the Armament Division. It was a good time for me and I think my work there was appreciated.

In 1993, I was the AEO of 707 NAS. In the RN, one's 'Charge' job was seen as important, so I'm pleased that I made a succcess of it. We had a trip to the South of France, for the young aircrew to learn mountain flying, and we also deployed three aircraft to RAF Aldergrove, near Belfast, establishing a FAA presence there.

For the next few years I worked as a Staff Officer for two MoD departments. The (not very pithily named...) Directorate of Naval Logistics and Staff Duties (DNLSD) and the the Directorate General Aircraft (Navy) - DGA(N). DNLSD moved from London to Bathduring my appointment, and when I was re-appointed to DGA(N), the move was a straightforward change of floors within the same building. I didn't enjoy this staff work, which involved the development of engineering policies, and decided to resign from the Service. I left the RN in 1998.

My civilian career

When I left the Navy, I joined a local software consultancy company as a project manager. I was very happy with the change. My first assignment was with the UK's Prison Service, which was worried about the possible impact of the Millennium Bug and what might happen as the century changed. So, I can safely say that I've been to prison. Actually, I've been to 25 of them, all in the West Country. It was work that was to last for nearly three years, and I had a marvellous team working with me. I think we all learned a lot, and we had a great time travelling around and sorting out the problems that we unearthed.

After the Prisons work, it was made clear to me that the company didn't really value project management skills and they were were difficult to sell to clients. So, I was offered an assignment as a Safety Engineer, working for a rail client. I was first given a 2-day training course in preparation. the assignment was a success though, and so I was asked to teach railway clients the Yellow Book course, which provided me both with lots of client exposure and with a deep understanding of safety engineering. Eventually, I took the role of Secretary to the Yellow Book Steering Group, before the book was withdrawn in January 2012.

In 2008, I was asked to travel to Sydney, Australia, to work for Railcorp, which at that time ran the suburban railways there. Railcorp was having a new section of railway built (the Epping to Chatswood Rail Link or ECRL) and needed an acceptance process to be devised and implemented. I worked with Railcorp for 6 months.

After returning to Bath, I worked firstly as a Work Package Manager, and then as Modifications Manager for the IFACTS software development for NATS. Thereafter, I changed employer twice, before returning to Bath in 2019, where my employer (then Altran) was bought by Capgemini, a huge and growing organisation. I retired at the end of 2023.

Hmm. I spent longer working in engineering consultancy than I did in the RN (25 years vs 21) but this section is shorter...

Where does this leave me?

After all these years of adult life, you can only hope that you gain something. If you're lucky, then this might be termed 'wisdom', but if not, I guess you just amass a set of possibly unjustified opinions. So, what you read in this blog might be either. I've felt very lucky; my professional life was pretty wide-ranging, and so some of what I say might chime with you. However, I'll leave it up to you do decide.