About Me
My name is Robert Trevena and I am Cornish by lineage and birth. Just about everyone except my family calls me Bob. I am 49 years old and live just outside of Camborne in the beautiful county of Cornwall. I have been married twice and have a daughter of 23. My wife Karen and I have two Border Collies and two cats.
As a child I attended Roskear Infants School and Basset Road Junior School for Boys, both of which are in Camborne for those of you who are not acquainted with the area. After passing my 11 Plus Examination in 1965 I went to Redruth County Grammar School. My late mother was so proud that she took me, dressed in my NEW school uniform, around to all her friends and family. This turned out to be quite lucrative as most of them gave me a gift of a few shillings and some of them even gave me a whole £1 or Ten Shilling note.
THIS IS WHAT A TEN SHILLING NOTE LOOKED LIKE
FOR THOSE YOUNGER OR OVERSEAS VISITORS WHO MAY NOT HAVE SEEN ONE BEFORE
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I left school in 1969 at the tender age of 15 years and 7 months. Arthur Parkes who was Head Teacher at that time of my leaving had already explained to me in an interview that I could probably leave without any "O" levels, or a fistful of them, if I applied myself. I thanked him and left.
I left school on a Friday and started work on the following Monday as a storeman at the Rank Bush Murphy TV factory I soon applied for a position on the Company Training Scheme and then having been accepted was duly sent to Cornwall College that September to study Radio and Television Engineering on a day release scheme. At the same time I learned all aspects of television manufacture and factory management and maintenance. I worked at R.B.M, or Rank Toshiba as it was by then, for 12 years until it closed in the early Spring of 1981 and I was made redundant along with about 1500 others. I had 12 fantastic years there, don't let anyone tell you that working in a factory is boring and dull. I made lifelong friends there and have memories so vivid they seem like yesterday.
In 1981 after the redundancy I worked for a security company at the Penzance Heliport, searching embarking Oil Rig workers for drugs, weapons and alcohol. It was at this time that I met Karen, who was to be my second wife. My time at the Heliport was absolutely wonderful, I managed to get up in the helicopter 2 or 3 times a week and even got out to the drilling platform "Chris Chenery". The rig was in position about 180 miles off the Western approach to the UK, almost at the range of the chopper. The security contract lasted for six months. I once tried to prevent a man who had a bag full of knives from leaving the departure lounge, I let him board the helicopter after it was explained to me that he was one of the chefs. In December of that year when the contract finished I was out of a job again.
Two weeks later I joined a company called Equipu, having applied for and been offered the post of service engineer repairing photocopiers and various other pieces of office equipment. In 1984 I left Equipu and joined Canon South West doing the same but for a far better salary. I transferred to a firm called Aztec around 1990 which later was sold to Erskine House and then to IKON.
The weird part of working in this field was that I repaired office equipment in schools that I had once attended or had been attended by friends and relatives. It was strange and yet comforting to visit and walk along corridors and climb stair cases that they and I had used all those years ago. Those schools were Bassett Road Junior, Roskear Infants, Camborne and Redruth Grammar Schools, Illogan and Portreath Schools. I don't suppose many people have the opportunity to revisit their childhood in this manner.
I suffered a heart attack in 1994 and was off work for about a year and was finally retired from active duty around 1996. I suffered another heart attack in 1997 and I now take life a lot easier on doctors orders.
I enjoy reading although my attention span isn't what it used to be. I prefer sci-fi, fantasy and historical novels. My favourite fantasy writers are J.R.R. Tolkien, of course, Ann McCaffery, Piers Anthony and others to numerous to mention.
