Since I gave up show business (at the age of 51), and got my first 'proper job' in the local library, I have enjoyed this new phase of my life, and layer of skills. I don't have a professional qualification, but they have so de-skilled the library service that I feel entitled to loosely call myself 'a librarian'. After the first couple of years I found my way into the computer department (a DOS-based management system) so was in place for when the Library Service moved into a Windows environment, and for when libraries rolled out free internet access - at which point I described myself as the computer whisperer (as I didn't work in the IT Dept, but for the library service - more involved with the Human-Computer Interface than the technical side, but it gave me the opportunity to be an early uptaker of Internet - as part of my job!
Well, the library eventually 'let me go' at the age of 68, and I sort of retired. But then the non-animal circus I have been involved in so long offered me the job of creating an archive of their 30 year history.
For the last year I have been collecting up stuff, which is currently on display in a short-lived exhibition, is available on a newly-launched website here - www.nofitstatearchive.com - and the paperwork will all get laid down in the Glamorgan Archives - where it will be stored for future historians, a hundred years from now.
So, to 'librarian' I have added 'archivist' in my cv, still without any qualifications at all....
I plan to have another go at 'being retired', at least until my 70th birthday in February 2016.
