My poetic talents were not wasted here either: Cheque Mate
Matthew, having defeated all attempts to encourage his birth in Cornwall, was born in Bury in July 1979 and Rachel in January 1983.
March 1984 saw the start of a Brave New World (see the first ID tag opposite).
By 1991, some of us were embracing the concept of commercialisation and the Computer Centre at Prestwich, where I was based, adopted the name of Professional Datacare. The various brochures produced during this metamorphosis are available on my Datacare web page for those who want to reminisce (and want to satisfy their masochistic tendencies) or even for those who are simply curious.
The NHS Computer Centre in Prestwich, at which I worked, was privatized in June 1995 and, for a while, I enjoyed the luxury of working for an American company, Shared Medical Systems, by which time I had become established as a telecommunications specialist and so well-known for my love of garlic that I was likened to an Irish police constable (see PC O’Garlic on the Wrong Scent).
It was during this time that the business of Professional Datacare expanded beyond the boundaries of the North West of England and I made many an early morning trip to Ipswich Hospital, one of several customers to whom we were selling Cisco network solutions. The most fortunate opportunity arose for me to visit the United States of America on two occasions to exchange technical information with colleagues across the pond.
