Living as an Expat

From the early days of my being an apprentice joiner/shopfitter, I used to help prepare making up joinery items. Were I lucky enough, I would later go out with an experienced group of tradesmen to install them in different parts of Devon & Cornwall. As a lot of our work involved fitting out shops and banks, I grew accustomed to working on high-class fit-outs. The experience gained in those early days acted as a springboard, when after five years of training, I became a fully qualified tradesman. I later moved to another shopfitting company as a foreman, and worked in many different parts of England on a variety of projects.

Due to there being more work in London than in the South West, my wife and I moved there. Here I first worked for a large shopping company, then left to work as a supervisor with another company, then onto another company in the same position. I was later contacted by the first shopfitting company I worked for, asking if I would be interested in going to Iran to work on fitting out a five-star hotel. Due to problems with the company I then worked for, I accepted their offer. This became my first experience of working outside of my home country. Although things at first in Iran were better than expected, when a revolution broke out with my in charge of a team of sixty expat workers, it put us in a dangerous situation. This resulted in our having to leave Iran, before being able to complete the last floor of the twenty-six story hotel.

As my company had obtained a short hotel contract in Qatar, I went there. On my later return to work in England, due to a back injury, I lost my job, putting my family and me in a serious financial situation. After six months, thanks to receiving chiropractic treatment, I was cured. Due to our then serious position, as I knew I could earn more money working overseas than I could in England, I decided to become an expat worker. This I did for nineteen years working in thirteen more countries spread through the Middle, Far East & North Africa. During this time, apart from working on a number of five-star hotels, I also worked on several palaces.

After obtaining a married status contract in Turkey, this being my first such contract, my late wife and I enjoyed being there so much, we had a house built. Although at the time it was intended more as a summer house, we decided to uproot ourselves from England and move to live permanently in Turkey. After twenty-seven years, I still live there, with my getting married at the age of seventy-two, to a Turkish lady three years younger than me. Thanks to her patience, I have written two books. The first about living in Turkey, and a memoir entitled Follow in the Tigerman’s Footsteps, which covers my incredible life working as an expat. All this I owe to being a positive person, and not a negative one.

Always remember, positive thought lead to positive results, with negative ones giving negative results.