Author: Roger Warburton

I remember the cub pack and later the boy scouts. I believe these were both started by Mr Dundas and after him were taken over by Mr Rowe. Unfortunately I have no photos from Winbury days.

After leaving Winbury I went to Highgate School in North London as a boarder. This was the school that my father had attended. In due course the Twins followed me. They are five years my junior. After leaving school I spent a year or so bashing around from job to job with no firm plan and then in 1962 I joined Theodore Hamblin Ltd, a company of dispensing opticians who were quite well known having 42 branches throughout England and Scotland. I trained as a dispensing optician and in 1966 I qualified as such and I have been in the spectacle business ever since.

I stayed with Hamblins for 11 years, the last five of which I did relief work which was rather fun because it meant that whenever the manager of a branch was off sick or on holiday they would send me off to wherever it was, stick me in a hotel and I would stand in for him until his return. This gave me the opportunity to work in all sorts of different places all over England and Scotland which made life interesting.

My brother Peter worked for Plessey and in 1972 they sent him to Cape Town to help set up a new department. He sent back all sorts of post cards and letters and photos telling us about what a super climate South Africa had and how there were four times as many women as men (this I have always doubted) and that all the women had big boobs (this I can vouch for) and what a super place it was to live. I thought it sounded great so I applied to South Africa House and after a lot of red tape and details, finally on 2nd November 1973 I stepped on a ship to South Africa. My intention was to stay for two years and then return to England.I never got round to going back.In March 1976 my brother returned to England.

For 22 years I worked for an ophthalmic surgeon in Bellville, a town about twenty kilometres from Cape Town. In 1977 I met my first wife. She was from Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). We lived together for five years and in 1982 we got married and our daughter was born. In 1984 our son was born. Unfortunately things went wrong and she returned to Zimbabwe with the children. A divorce followed and I spent a year on my own. In 1985 I met my second wife Anne. We clicked and have been together ever since. We got married in 1995.

In 1996 my job folded up and I opened my own business. At first I struggled but then I hit on a new idea. Factories are full of people who in many cases would benefit from spectacles but will never get round to doing anything about it largely because of the high cost of spectacles and because the average factory worker is totally unable to work with money.

If you can make yourself completely mobile and take the service to the customers and offer them a price cheaper than they will get anywhere else having first negotiated with the employer that they are willing to do deductions from employees' wages, then you collect all the people who would otherwise never get round to having their eyes tested or getting spectacles. I found that this worked well. Since I did not need a shop or retail premises I could run the business from home which meant almost no overheads so I could afford to undercut all the opposition.

I have been running this business for 15 years now and it is still doing all right. Last June I turned 70. I am still struggling to believe this is true. We have been drawing our pension for five years but I am scared to retire because I know that if I do I shall degenerate and turn into a vegatable. I don't want this to happen so I keep working although these days it is more a hobby than a job. It is a hobby which keeps me busy and brings in a bit of money.

Some years ago my ex moved to England with the children and when Anne and I were in England in July/August 2011 we visited my son. Unfortunately my daughter was working in France so we did not see her.

That just about brings us up to date with my life.

Roger Warburton - 07/01/2013