It's interesting. Ever since my friend Ian Fletcher got in touch with me yesterday, I had not heard from him for a while, I have been thinking a bit about when I had a pretty wild time in York from 1981 t0 '86. I think I just grew up over that period and had an amazing fun time with many people but I also spent lot of time with some mentally handicapped friends who lived at Juniper Communities Residential home. It was sort of my day job for about three and a half years and whilst I didn't get paid , they offered me money but I turned it down I was paid in kind.That was worth a lot more by the way! That was the day sorted and I partied quite hard and had lots of interesting conversations with people , like Ian, about 3-4 evening a week.

With the guys from Juniper for example I took them out camping , hired a boat for a week with three of them , me all alone and three men I was responsible for on a boat for a week going upstream to the Swale and then eventually locking into the Ripon canal. It was a challenging week I can tell you but fun! Peter Dodds and Joe James came up from York , or should I say just appeared, I wasn't expecting them and we had a pretty wild party that night . The Juniper guys thoroughly enjoyed themselves. The next morning one of them Peter Beale fell into the lock. Not that I noticed. He had a strong sense of self preservation thank goodness . The lock keeper fished him out when he noticed him hanging onto the side of the lock. I told the Juniper Management Committee about this when I got back and they didn't mind at all . Different era , not so Health and Safety conscious!

I was glad when the York years were over , becoming Bahai and marrying Fiona but I did meet and really get to know many really nice people over those years.