About me
Hobbies and interests
My hobbies and interests are reflected in the books and music I review on Amazon. See my central hub, which contains links to all my other blogs, my Amazon profiles and the main internet sites that I've contributed to.
With my hobbies and interests described elsewhere, this page is mainly limited to give-away clues about my birth and a tour of Britain listing the places I've lived and worked. It will be of interest to only a minority of people, but there are lots of people called Peter Harris out there. No, I'm not Peter Harris the DJ from Wales who also likes Horse racing and music. Indeed, I'm not any of the people named Peter Harris on Wikipedia because I'm not that important. Actually, I think my middle name (Durward) may make me unique. It is sometimes used as a first or middle name and sometimes as a surname but is extremely rare either way, even in Scotland where it originated.
When I was born
I am British, of pure Scottish blood but born and raised in England (except for a brief period in Scotland). I have lived in England all my adult life. I was actually born in Malmesbury. I share a birthday with Jimmie Rodgers (the singing brakeman), Patsy Cline (the famous country singer), Graham Bradley (the former British jump jockey), Yves Saint Martin (the former French champion jockey), Harry Secombe (a British TV presenter who was also a comedian and singer) and Loggie-log-log-log (an Amazon contributor) among others.
In the year of my birth
I was born in the same year as Brenda Webb, Elaine Bickerstaffe and Gaynor Hopkins, all of whom changed their names before becoming successful. I am, of course, a huge fan of all three singers. Click on the links to identify their stage names.
In football (soccer), Tottenham Hotspur were English league champions in the year of my birth while Newcastle United won the FA Cup. Hibernian were Scottish league champions while Celtic won the Scottish Cup.
In Horse racing, the year of my birth was not especially notable in Britain or the United States, either for big-race winners or new-born foals, but Native Dancer was around at the time though not yet of racing age.
In golf, Ben Hogan won two of golf's majors. Sam Snead and Max Faulkner each won one of the other two.
In tennis, Maureen Connolly won the women's US Open tennis, it being the first of her nine consecutive grand slam titles before injury terminated her career. Doris Hart won the equivalent Wimbledon tennis title. She won six grand slam titles altogether but also lost in four finals to Maureen Connolly.
In motor sport, Juan Manuel Fangio won the first of his five Formula One world championship titles.
My age really shows when I look at transport and royalty. I was born in the age of steam, in the year when the Britannia class locomotives first emerged from the works. They began service initially on London to Norwich expresses during the reign of King George VI.
Where I've been
This section will enable anybody from my past to identify me - if they remember me at all. Note that I may not have picked the best website to represent each village, town or city but I'll change these websites if I find better ones. My father was in the air force (based at nearby Hullavington) when I was born, but we moved away a few months after I was born, initially to Pocklington, but I don't remember anything about that. My first (albeit vague) memories are of Mablethorpe where I started school. We moved soon afterwards, this time to Montrose, which happens to be my ancestral homeland as my parents were both raised in Hillside. Sadly, we were only there a few months before we headed back to the south of England, not all that far from where I'd been born. First, we lived for a couple of years in Marshfield. After the frequent movement of my early years, we had a long period of stability. We moved to Chippenham and stayed there for seven years - well over half my schooldays. These days, Chippenham may be most famous as the place where Eddie Cochran died, but although that happened while I was there, I don't remember it. I was too young to be interested in either music or news. Just when I was thinking that maybe I'd finish school there, we moved to Swindon.
I started work there but the strains of living with my parents eventually made me decide to look for a job elsewhere. I went to London but never liked it much. It's fine for tourists and shoppers but not for workers. After a couple of years, I got a job with the local council in Gateshead but I actually chose to live on the other side of the river in Jesmond, a suburb of Newcastle. During that time, I lived in Eslington Terrace, a street where Bryan Ferry had once lived before he became famous. After a couple of years, I changed jobs and moved to Leeds. I stayed slightly longer there before moving to another job in Bath. So I was not far from Marshfield and Chippenham, but I lived the other side of Bath this time, first in Bristol but later in Keynsham. I suffered my first redundancy only a year after starting in Bath. I decided to go freelance and soon found work in Basingstoke.
I realized that Keynsham was not an ideal base for a freelancer and eventually moved to Basingstoke, where I lived for eleven years. During that time, I did many short-term contracts at various places around England and Wales. Ironically, a couple of them were in Bristol but others were at diverse locations listed in the table below. In between these freelance jobs, I also tried a return to normal work via a job at Woking but it only lasted six months before I became redundant again, returning to freelance work.
| Short term contracts | |
|---|---|
| Aylesbury | Bracknell |
| Caernarfon | Daventry |
| Newbury | Reading |
| Rochdale | Salisbury |
| Southampton | Spennymoor |
| Taunton | Waterlooville |
Eventually, a combination of stresses caused me to take a clean break for a few months. I had plenty of money and could afford to - as long as I got a job again as soon as I wanted it. It was a big mistake. I didn't find work again for many years, during which time I moved again. Forced to sell my house, I decided to base myself in the middle of the country, to be ready for whatever came my way. So I moved to Birmingham. When I finally found a job, it was in Narborough and that's when I moved to my present home in Leicester. I stayed in that job for four and a half jobs but redundancy struck me for the third time. Will I ever work again? Who knows. But at least I'm keeping myself occupied doing something useful. Nottingham seems to be the most likely place in which I'll find a job if I don't find one in Leicester. If that happened, I'd be able to commute from Leicester for a few months while I settle in to a job, but I would eventually move there. Well, I've lived in Leicester for a longer period than anywhere else I've been and there's no likelihood of my moving elsewhere any time soon.
My royal connections
I have put this information in my Amazon topics blog although it doesn't strictly belong there.
