Who am I?

My name is Denis Eric Kilgariff. Known to all as Danny. Why, is not very interesting. I was born on 8th April 1930. In Folkestone, Kent, UK.

My Wife (She Who Must Be Obeyed)

She is named Jessie but as often as not is called Jess (or Darling, or Dearest or Beautiful) depending on which chore I'm trying to get out of. We have been married for 48 years but if we had known it was only going to be a temporary arrangement we wouldn't have bothered.

Where Do We Live

We live the beautiful Cathedral City of Lincoln UK. It is just the right size not to be classed as rural but not big enough to be a nightmare to drive in. We stayed in the area after finished my service in the RAF at a local Airfield. We live in a flat. (no garden = no lawn mowing = more time to do this = bliss). We are only about two hours by train from the centre of London. Love it!!

My Family

We have three children. Debbie is a genius seamstress. Denis is an airline Captain and Derek is the manager of a large store. These are three of my best friends we had them when we were quite young and have grown up with them which is something I recommend to anybody.
I also have three grandchildren. David is Debbie's 23 year old son. He is a very keen Rugby Union player and is hoping that somebody will pay him for playing now that the game has turned professional. And finally Lisa Emma and Sarah (with an 'H' as she informs us) ten and eight years respectively who are Denis's children.

What do I do

I am now retired, but I left school in 1944, at age fourteen, with hardly any education and what little I had was interupted by the war. I served a five year apprenticeship as a plasterer which was followed by one year of what was euphemistically called an improver ie another year of cheap labour before I was classed as fully qualified. The one advantage that I had (although I did'nt realize it at the time) was that I got to go to school one day a week, provided that I attended night school three nights a week. How I hated those six years but my nose was kept to the grindstone by a strict father, who I realised later, only wanted to do the best he could for the eldest of his eight children.
National Service in the Royal Air Force then called. It lasted two years but I stayed for twenty three years and enjoyed every minute of it. Saw the world, got shot at, shot back. Spent seven of those years on Bomb Disposal and still got all of my fingers. The next few years was spent running my own timber felling business and when that industry succumbed to the recession finished up transporting cars all over the UK.

My Hobbies (or my obsession)

Computing

I run an Acorn RiscPC Strongarm, Running 233 Mhz which to the uninitiated, has absolutely nothing to do with Intel, Microsoft, or Apple but is brilliant British machine that has its own proprietary operating system called RiscOS that runs the Reduced Instruction Set seven years before Apple tried it.

My Favourite Piece of Music

A piece called 'Sailing By' I do not know who the composer is but it it played every Night/Morning, 00:30am or thereabouts before the UK Shipping Forecast. It caused quite a stir recently when the BBC tried to drop it.

Message to the gentleman named Peter? who emailed me on this subject!!
Please email me again. (9/6/2000)