I was born on the 22nd of June 1972 and was brought up in and around Hornchurch. Until I was 2 and a half years old I was a normal healthy baby boy when I suddenly developed Eczema and soon after Asthma, both of which I have been battling with ever since.
While I was growing up I got a big interest in aircraft and space and was soon hooked on the great T.V. programmes such as Airwolf, Blue Thunder and of course Star Trek.
I left school on my 16th birthday with 8 G.C.S.E.s after a few jobs I returned to college and gained 2 N.V.Q. level III qualifications in Information Technology and Systems Design and Production.
Due to my ill health, over the years I watched and recorded a lot of T.V. and I now have a nice collection of over 1,600 films and a total of over 4,500 programmes on a growing total of 1,428 tapes. Incase your wondering they now take up most of the space in my bedroom and are slowly overflowing into the hall and lounge.
My interest in aircraft grew and in 1992 I had saved enough money to buy my pride and joy, a radio controlled model helicopter, which has now clocked up over 250 flying hours and only 4 crashes. During the 6 years, the helicopter has done a number of different tasks from taking some interesting aerial photos to launching airborne model rockets.
It was while I was at the 1994 Sandown Model show that I saw my very first model rocket being launched, and ever since then I have been hooked. The next weekend I launched my first rocket - an Alpha 3 on a A8-3 engine. It was one of the scariest moments of my life. It now seems funny but on that faithful day I thought the 30 foot launch wire was far to short, so I decided to lay flat on the ground and waited for some people to appear before I felt that it was safe enough to launch the rocket on it's maiden flight.
I had been into rocketry for a while then I noticed a small poster in Reeves Model shop adverting a new club called H.A.R.T. ….. I phoned Laurie and after a short chat on the phone he came round to introduce himself and to see my collection of rockets, and that night I become the 5th member of the Hornchurch Airfield Rocket Team or H.A.R.T.
Due to my computer and my modem the HART web page soon appeared, the next year I helped to write articles for the newsletter.
I become the newsletters editor a while later as Mike needed time for his studies, then in 1997 Laurie offered me the leadership of the club due to his new baby.
Since then I have been actively building and flying rockets and helping with the club's public displays. Last year I started getting into Big rockets and I am now the proud builder and owner of the Rocket "H.A.R.T. Attack" with a few other big rockets being built for this season.
Last year I become a helper on the P.E.A.K. holidays (a holiday for kids with Asthma and Eczema) and I soon found myself in the deep-end as I offered to teach the 38 kids on the holiday how to build a model rocket in just an hour, amazingly it went really well, and apart from a few problems, all the kids managed to launch their own rocket during the week.
Last year I also raised over £100 for the National Asthma Campaign by doing a sponsored abseil down a 7 story building. I am even mad enough to do it again this year.