Keith Berry's Homepage

Location: Witton, Birmingham, England
Email address: keithberry@blueyonder.co.uk

Keith Berry, a brief history

I was born on a small farm near Great Witley, Worcestershire in 1941 and educated in Birmingham (to where the family moved when I was two years old) at Westminster Road Primary School, Canterbury Road Primary School, and King Edward VI Grammar School, Aston.

After a very brief career as a trainee chef I worked for three years in an export merchants, five years in export shipping and documentation with several manufacturers, three years as a salesman in photographic shops, then eight years travelling throughout the English Midlands as a mobile service engineer, during which time I experienced the first of my agoraphobia attacks, which have continued up to the present day, but which have eased a little lately thanks to the remarkable Seroxat (Paroxetene). A brief spell as an assistant export manager was followed by eleven years of 'semi-retirement' until I spent four years as a part time computer operator working an up to eighteen hour Sunday and up to twelve hour Monday night shifts. Since just before redundancy in 1993 I have run Keith's DTP Service, typesetting the monthly magazine of the Birmingham & Midland Institute for four-and-a-half years. I spent an enjoyable year as a freelance computer graphics tutorial writer and graphics utility reviewer for the Atari ST Review magazine.

My wife, Joyce, and I were married in 1968 and we share several hobbies such as photography, drawing and painting. I also collect budget priced fountain pens and watercolour paintboxes. We both enjoy hunting for bargains at car boot sales, but these sales are have become very scarce within Birmingham lately and the activities of the Labour controlled City Council's control freaks are the probable cause - any boot sale held within around 7 miles of the Bull Ring has to be licensed and the Council hate any fund-raising activity upon which they cannot leech..

Above, left: This is Wispy, our four-year old Birman cat who replaced our 14-year old Tupsy, a dear old black and white 'moggy' who died suddenly in March 1999.

Birmans, while being similar in appearance to Persians, have a coat that is easier to care for, and a brushing once a day is all that's really needed. Fortunately, Wispy enjoys being groomed, at which time she is at her friendliest. She was suspected by her previous owners of aggravating one of the family member's eczema condition and they were keen to find her a new home, which we were pleased to provide.

Pentax Espio 928
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Above, right: Twenty four of my fountain pens scanned on my flatbed scanner. Apart from three that I have owned from new from the 1960s, the remainder were either bought used at car boot sales or new from "Pound Shops" or stationery remainder shops.

There is a huge vintage pen collecting industry, particularly in the USA, but none of my collection is in that sort of price bracket.

Right is the Citroën 2CV6 that we owned for six years. It was far from being the most reliable of cars, but it was light enough to push uphill. A joy to drive, it benefitted from forty years of continuous development - apart from a few strange quirks - and I hadn't been able to feel any enthusiasm for any other car since we reluctantly parted with it following the move of the French Car Centre from Dudley Road to the south side if the city, leaving us, a one-car family, with no Citroën service facilities for miles. Its replacement, a Vauxhall Nova, while being much more dependable and readily serviced, had all the design flair of a cardboard box, and after nine years with that, it has, in its turn, been replaced by a Seat Ibiza, a very different vehicle from either of them, and it's pleasant to drive but with the closure of Mercian Motors, we now have no SEAT service in North Birmingham and I'm stuck with a vehicle with an increasing number.of irritating faults, one of which is that the radio drains the battery because it won't switch off!

Olympus OM-2n 28mm f3.5 Zuiko