TAKING THE PLUNGE

My dad was a fella with an Einstein brain from a not so well off family. The way his brain worked was a wonder. It took him a while to gather his thoughts which kind of suggested he was indecisive which was not the case. When it came to it he made a choice and stuck right on with it. At fourteen he left school and worked as an apprentice bookbinder of all things. At fifteen he had enough to pay for night school. Electronics was the thing he thought. At sixteen his brother joined him. At eighteen they both qualified. At nineteen in 1940 he was in the RAF mending radios on bombers. His brother mended radios in tanks in the desert and Italy. In 1946 he got married on a whim to a nurse who nursed him. Nothing so romantic as a war wound. An in-growing toenail. In 1950 he was developing radar and early computers. His brother fixed TVs in South Africa after emigrating.

What is all this about you might ask. A life history. In a way for sure but mostly it is about taking the plunge. In 1963 he told me no matter who you are or where you come from, everyone has opportunities. The trick is to spot them. Then to be prepared to take the plunge. Without that leap into the unknown, he said, all those opportunities would simply slip away. He was a thinker was my dad and he made me think and I can tell you every single opportunity I have been presented with I have taken that plunge. In fact I have plunged so much by now I should have drowned. But that’s the thing, isn’t it. Take the plunge and you don’t drown. More likely the people who drown are those who don’t.

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