I'm 52 years old, recently divorced for the second time and have 3 kids..............Stephen from my first marriage and 2 adopted kids, Paul and Laura . They live with their respective mothers, but, fortunately, I see a lot of them. I was born and bred in Sheffield and have lived here all my life. My father was a miner and did 40 years underground in the local pits. My mum had various jobs from time to time. I have a brother, Derrick and a sister, Irene. They both have families with 2 kids each, all living in Sheffield, so we see each other fairly regularly.
My school days were spent at Acres Hill Infants and Juniors and then at Sheffield City Grammar School. The latter was initially in the centre of Sheffield, but shortly after I started there, it moved to a new site at Stradbroke (a suburb of Sheffield). The original grammar school building was a fascinating place, with lots of odd little rooms and passageways, but more of this in the Sheffield section.
I left school at 18 and went to work at what was then called the Safety In Mines Research Establishment (SMRE), which is on Broad Lane, just out of the city centre. This was Government run under the Ministry of Power.............so I was and still am, in theory, a civil servant. Various changes of Departments occurred at regular intervals, depending on the whims of the government of the day, until we became a part of the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) under the name of the Research and Laboratory Services Division (RLSD). Our remit now was to provide support and research for industry in general, rather than just for mines. In fact the mining side has virtually disappeared with the demise of the British coal industry, but we still get involved occasionally. A further change took place, when we became an Agency of the HSE and are now known as the Health and Safety Laboratory (HSL). Sadly, in some ways, we are facing yet another change in late 2004. We are moving out of Sheffield to Harpur Hill, which is a remote spot on top of the moors just outside Buxton. This will be a big upheaval and presents lots of problems, but apparently, it's for our own good!
But enough of this boring stuff...........what do I actually do?
Well, I do research and testing on all types of respiratory protective equipment (RPE), otherwise known as breathing apparatus (BA). I also do BA incident investigations, which tends to involve a lot of contact with fire brigades and help to formulate European (CEN) and International (ISO) Standards (which means I get to do a bit of travelling now and then).
I won't bore you with any more details, just to say that, if anyone needs any information about health and safety matters generally, or more particularly, information about RPE, then please feel free to drop me a line. I'm not saying I can answer your question, but I should be able to point you in the right direction to get the information you need. If you're desperate, you can always check out the web site at Health and Safety Laboratory or here for more general stuff Health and Safety Executive.