21/10/2019
On what would have been Steve's 61st birthday, here's a synopsis of his life in his own words, written with a computer - initially using a thumbpad and later using only his eyes....
It's a long read, but we thought that those who knew him should be able to read every word.
❄️❄️🏍🍻🎸🎿🎶⛷🥃🎉❄️❄️
MY LIFE IN A NUTSHELL
- by Steve 'Snowy' Watson (21/10/1958 – 12/07/2019)
I have been very disappointed throughout my life due to the fact that I have never been scuba diving.
As a kid I spent most of my life outdoors. Mostly in the countryside surrounding Wombourne. I developed an avid interest in wildlife, especially birds. Unfortunately, in those days it was usually to shoot it or to add birds’ eggs to my collection. Much to the envy of many of my friends I had a huge collection of birds’ eggs. I also started to get an interest in fishing and spent many happy hours sitting catching Gudgeon and watching wildlife on the canal. Even persuaded my environmental science teacher to let 2 of us carry out a wildlife survey around the canal. This basically consisted of 4 hours fishing a week in school time approved by our teacher. I have very fond memories around the age of 8 -10 fishing in the rock pools on holiday in Devon and boat fishing for mackerel. I also had lots of different air rifles during my teenage years. Invariably they were all taken apart and improved upon, usually resulting in something a lot more powerful than it should have been or was even legal. This was all very unfortunate for the squirrel population of Himley woods and the rats at the local tip. It was during this period of my teens that I also took the occasional excursion into the world of clay pigeon shooting at various local clubs. I progressed to become world s***t shooting champion before the age of 20. Oh no wait I forgot that I'm writing this whilst taking morphine. That was just a dream, I did win a few minor competitions, however. My interest in wildlife has been with me and developed throughout my life. Fortunately turning to conservation rather than destruction, as in my formative years. That said, I still used to go fly fishing and occasionally shooting. Thus, trout and rabbit were frequently on the menu.
As a kid I had a burning curiosity regarding mechanical devices and I spent hours in the shed with the old man's tools taking things apart. I even managed to successfully put a couple of them back together. When I was around 12 or 13 my dad brought home a knackered old Raleigh wisp moped and gave it to me, thus effectively ending any chance of my becoming a brain surgeon and also ending my career as pram wheel go-cart racer. The moped was stripped, problems found, parts sourced, innumerable buses back and forth to Bilston to buy parts, moped rebuilt and running. So began the years of spending weekends in the woods and the railway on all sorts of bikes. During these
years it seemed that everyone my age had an old bike and spent hours racing around the woods or the disused railway. Happy days causing zero trouble to anyone apart from the odd noise complaint.
Also during my younger years, I started to dabble with explosives and particularly home-made fireworks. I became the guy to go to for your home-made fuse. In around 1975, a nameless good friend of mine seemed to have perfected the manufacture of black powder. We decided to try a little experiment with a small bomb. Completely harmless of course. Filling a cocoa tin with his black-powder-coated rice and adding a long-time fuse. The Contraption was wrapped in a tight thick layer of gaffer tape. A bunch of us took it to the top of Pickerill’s Hill where it was buried 2 feet down with the fuse protected in a tube. The fuse would give us time to leg it down the hill and halfway across the estate to the park. Very professional experiment I hear you mumbling. Yes, we made it back to the park. This is where we witnessed what can only be described as a small nuclear explosion. It lit up the night sky and produced the loudest boom I think I had ever heard. I think we all would need a change of underwear. It took the police around 5 minutes to get there closely followed by the fire brigade. We watched the torch beams scanning around the hill for a while and during our debrief, all decided it was a tad over the top. I did venture up the hill a few days later to find a crater 6 feet diameter x 3 feet deep.
During the early 90's whilst going through another divorce and revisiting my old haunts I stumbled, probably literally as I used to drink a lot in those days, across some old friends. I was introduced to the Wolverhampton Motorcycle Action Group. Sounded all very officious but turned out to be a front and just an excuse to have jolly spiffing camping weekends involving beer bikes and music. My interest in bikes was instantly rekindled and basic training was booked shortly after. Some of the best years of my life have been since meeting old and new friends and enjoying the camaraderie of Wolves MAG. To this day many of my great and closest friends emanate from that eclectic group.
During the 90's I had great pride in completely stripping down to every last nut and bolt and rebuilding a Yamaha XJ700 Maxim. That bike was my pride and joy but unfortunately soon became way too under powered for my ego. Thus in '05 entered the dragon in the shape of a GSX1400. My pride and joy until very reluctant sale in May 2018. Many hours of enjoyment have been had riding my various bikes and many memories have been stored. Far too many happy memories exist to even contemplate extracting any here. However, 3 unhappy, well unhappy at the time, memories do readily spring to the front of the queue.
Number 1. Enduring horrendous weather whilst on a weekend trip to a one-day rally in Belgium. Packing up camping gear in torrential rain and near hurricane winds. Setting off avoiding fallen trees. Getting to the harbour to find ferry cancelled due to 300-foot waves. We decided to head for the channel tunnel about 70 miles away. Sideways riding flat out at 85 and along came a duck, the duck was obviously tired as it decided to park in my face at 100mph. Duck managed to smash both clocks and clutch also broke my glasses under my visor. No idea how I kept upright. Made it to Calais and got on the hover craft. Very nearly sick. Poor Chris seizing up by Watford gap. Rode home in the rain and increasing darkness wearing prescription sunglasses. Once we had put the bike away, I immediately ordered duck curry and fried rice as a ducking revenge on Donald the suicidal. Removing various duck parts from bike a year later.
Number 2. Riding home from the Duk Dik rally with my great buddy Leonie, we had enjoyed the ride having the usual fun annoying motorists and being a general nuisance. We got all the way back to Swindon 1 mile from home. I looked down and it appeared that my crotch was on fire. As this didn't seem normal, I decided further investigation was called for. Parking the bike, it was with some relief to find that it was the bike and not my crotch billowing smoke. Saddle off to find damaged wire had welded itself to the bike frame. Can't remember if I managed to ride it home. Maybe Leonie can.
Number 3. By far the most serious incident. 1st August 2008 first reasonable weekend of a wet and cold summer. Bike loaded up just Chris and myself heading off to a relaxing weekend camping in the Elan Valley. We had a nice, relaxing dry ride as far as nearly Cross Houses. Had been following 2 cars behind a slow flatbed transit for a few miles. Being someone who gets bored easily, coupled with the threat of the minor drizzle becoming heavier, I decided to push on. Picked my spot to overtake the hold up and unleashed the dragon. All was going well until the transit hit the brakes and turned right. I lost it and dumped the bike. Don't remember much other than Chris saying she had hurt her elbow. I couldn't believe that we didn't hit anything. First reaction was to drag the transit driver through his window and perform some new medieval torture upon him. Second reaction was to leave the torture until later and concentrate on collapsing in pain on the pavement. Only decent weekend that summer spent in Hereford hospital. Chris with a badly busted elbow and unbelievable bruising. Me with busted ribs, peeing blood and a few cuts - oh and severely bruised ears. The bruised ears were not from the accident but from the ear bashing Chris gave me.
Back to my school years when I get taught to swim by Olympic gold medallist Anita Lonsbrough. I then competed in inter school competitions and won my fair share. Got picked to swim national events for Wolverhampton. Won my fair share there too. I played badminton, football, rugby and table tennis for my school. Also played table tennis in the Wolverhampton league, coincidentally on a few occasions playing against Olympic gold medal cyclist Hugh Porter, who was Anita Lonsbrough’s husband. I learned to ski at school and in Austria, came 5th in an inter-school competition in Innsbruck. I played football for Orton Vale and rugby for Dudley and Kingswinford when I left school. In 1991, I won the air rifle field target British Masters’ championship. In the next 2 years I came 7th in the European air rifle field target championship and 27th in the world championship. After a year or so my brother decided to join me field target shooting, and we spent many happy weekends and evenings at competitions or just practising. I think he may have even beat me once, but I might be mistaken and he used to cheat a lot. When I eventually packed in, I returned over 300 trophies to my club. I then started playing golf. Got my handicap unofficially down to 5 and won the Chesterton golf club stableford championship. I used to go mountaineering and rock climbing. Myself and my brother in law trained for a year to attempt the 17 north welsh peaks over 3000 feet in 2 days. We failed due to bad weather but still managed 13 and raised loads for charity. I have only ever entered one fishing competition and I won that against 90 seasoned match Fishermen.
During the 90s I met up with a bunch of guys who used to have a week canoeing 100 miles down the River Wye. My great friend Vinny and myself decided to follow this bunch in my van and camp with them. During the next few nights we introduced them to campfires and guitar music from Vinny. It was on the 3rd night that I realised that we were in the company of 2 police sergeants, a private a barrister, 3 solicitors, a crown prosecution adviser and 2 jail workers. Maybe I should have gained this information prior to offering my special Jamaican ci******es around. Cost me a fortune that night - they nearly smoked the lot! Suffice to say the following number of years we were part of the group and joined the Wye Trekkers. Great excuse to get pi**ed all day. After a few years the Wye Trekkers dwindled and sadly ultimately were no more. It was at this juncture that I decided to organise a shortened version of the trek over just a weekend. This went down a storm with over 30 people partaking in the first year. This continued for over 10 years with more than 20 in the group. Sadly ceasing to be once the MND had taken my right arm and I could no longer paddle. I guess up to that point I had canoed well over 1000 miles on the Wye and the Severn.
I have flown a helicopter, various light aircraft, an open cockpit tiger moth and a number of different gliders. I was a member of the Midland Gliding Club for a few years. I have owned and driven rally cars. I have driven single-seater racing cars on circuits, a Ferrari around Silverstone, off road vehicles on competition stages and a 50-ton wagon around a gravel quarry. I have owned and ridden all manner of motorcycles. I hold a power boat license and have used it to rent boats and go big fish fishing all over the Med and the USA. I have scared the pants off everyone with my fast, skilful driving and scared the pants off myself with my riding.
My working life sort of started around the age of 12-13. I think I realised early that, being greedy, I would always want more than I was given. Thus, I would have to get it for myself. I had a thriving car and window cleaning business before I left school and earned more money than a lot of adults. It was hard graft too. I bought many things with my profits including a Chopper bike and a big telescope. I was fairly rich amongst my friends and my girlfriends always had the best. At 16 I started an electrical engineering apprenticeship and achieved the highest qualifications possible, followed by a 3-year electronics course paid for by myself and studied at night after work. I reluctantly had to stop working in January 2018 due to the MND. I started work as an apprentice and 40 years later finished as a highly skilled specialist electrical and mechanical building services project manager and designer in the very specialised cleanroom field. During my working life I have worked in many varied and interesting places, to name just a very few - the Royal Mint, British Museum, Natural History Museum, the 2 highest security-level government facilities in the country for M15 and the Foreign Office, Cambridge and Oxford universities, various other universities, Twycross Zoo, London Zoo, head building services project engineer building first services on the Birmingham toll road, chief mechanical designer on the new Birmingham Children’s Hospital burns unit (first of its kind in this country) British Nuclear Fuels Chester, BP Oil charging facility on Flota in Scapa Flow, lead mechanical engineer on the new Norfolk and Norwich hospital building and I designed and installed the air conditioning control systems in nearly every Next shop and Laura Ashley shop in the country, co-designer of bespoke engine test rooms at Cosworth UK, the 2 largest arc furnaces in Europe and the largest steel works and many, many more.
I now only have the use of my left thumb. My right arm is completely paralyzed and none of the fingers on my left-hand work. I can't walk, dress shower, toilet or eat for myself. I have however still designed and produced a complete set of 14 CAD drawings for our new adapted house. I have probably done more than 10 average people and
forgotten more than most have ever known.
Holidays and countries naturist radio one Road show.
fireworks, guitar, become a DIY expert, built a beautiful man shed, got friends most people could only dream about, took 3 attempts before I found the most beautiful wife anyone could wish for, been sober drunk and stoned in great company on numerous occasions. Know a lot more about wildlife especially birds than probably 95%,
I have loved loads and hated very, very little.
Don't feel sad for me you bunch of wasters - I’ve had a great visit to earth. Go out there and live the best life you can whilst you have the chance. See you on the flip side. Love you all.
P.S. Still a shame about the scuba diving but I didn't really have the time anyway. 🍻❄️
