Andrew C's Biog

Andrew C's Biog – all the things you never wanted to know about me
CVs tell you about someone's career but precious little about the person themselves - on this page I have perhaps gone to the opposite extreme. Okay it's self-centred and probably brimming with more than you want to know, but it's the one point on the site where I get to be just me, so I make no excuses! Andrew Charman arrived in the world on 23 August 1961, at Redhill hospital, Surrey - I pass the place several times a week except that now it is a housing estate. Most of my life I have lived three miles further south in Horley, once a town, now a satellite of the ever-expanding monolith that is Gatwick Airport. My education was at Horley's Court Lodge School. In those days I used to walk a mile or more right across town to school, something my kids would be horrified by, but curiously I now live five minutes walk from said school - or I would, if it too had not become a housing estate. A curious towering and monument-like slice of the school building remains, serving as a youth club., with Horley Town FC now occupying the old playing fields. It was at school that I first got the clue where my life would lead. My mother loves to tell stories of my reading daily newspapers aged five, and in English class I was the one who always had to stand up and read my stories out loud. I ended up with seven O-levels (to the younger ones among you reading this, O-levels were the ancient predecessor to GCSEs) and a pair of A-levels. To be honest I didn't know what I wanted to do. All through school there was a plan for me to become a design draftsman but I don't know where that came from - it certainly wasn't the family trade as my father combined towing planes at Gatwick with driving coaches. Anyway I reached sixth form without enough lessons to fill the week and a friend suggested I do the photography course; "I'm doing it too, we can have a laugh." Alan Taylor, wherever you are, thanks for launching my career... The sensible way to become a photographer is to go to college - I decided to try freelancing each weekend at Brands Hatch and meanwhile went to work on the photographic counter of a record shop in Horley. I'm glad I did, coz things turned out okay in the end and we had a lot of fun. Figures from our shop helped compile the weekly pop charts at a time when they meant something, so we used to get loads of freebies from record companies, especially free tickets - during that wonderful early 1980s period I saw everything from Thin Lizzy to Frankie Goes To Hollywood and Marillion - lots of Marilion. That all came to an end in 1985 when I joined the local paper and got myself a proper career - more on which you'll find by clicking here. The shop by the way still exists, except it's now an insurance brokers and the spot by the window where my Burmese boss and I spent many hours watching the girls go by was for a long time occupied by s tropical fish tank... It was while working at the local paper that I met my wife Rosemary, in 1987. We got to know each other at Brands Hatch, despite the fact she lived around three miles away from me. She was going through the race school, and we briefly had plans to race an MGB together but instead spent what little money we had on having a nice honeymoon following our marriage in May 1988. I never have raced a car - still wouldn't mind trying if anyone wants to offer me a drive... Three years of peace ended in April 1991 with the arrival of our first son James, followed by Stewart in March 1995 and Megan in December 1997. Stewart was born shortly before we moved back to Horley, after a seven year stint in Sharpthorne, near East Grinstead in Sussex, during which we became one of the thousands of negative-equity victims - now that was a fun time. Eventually in 1995 we moved to a nice three-bedroomed house in Horley, which was slowly redecorated, a constant battle between Rosemary's desire to create rooms the way she likes them and my hate for the task of redecorating. But the long-term aim was always to move to Mid-Wales - originally we thought not likely to happen until the Charman Three Terrors had left school. But we suddenly realised we could move in the summer of 2007 without causing them too much damage, and we went for it - and then the credit crunch happened. Our Surrey house sale fell through five times and we eventually sold it in August 2008, having been living in a lovely new five-bedroom detached in Llanfair Caereinion, Powys since October 2007 - financially it was a big, big hit which as I write I am only just beginning to start the recovery from. The one redeeming factor is that our life in Wales is 100 times better than it was in Surrey and we wouldn't move back. Llanfair Caereinion is the business end of the Welshpool & Llanfair Light Railway, focus of my major interest outside motoring, funny little railways - narrow gauge ones to use the proper title. I have been the line's Press Officer for more than a decade, for many years possibly the farthest flung Press Officer around! Since moving into the district we've been able to get more prominently involved - I now work in the railway's workshops repairing and restoring steam locos and am training to be a locomotive fireman, hopefully one day a driver, while Rosemary splits her time between the railway tea rooms and gardens, and the kids do their bit too. We all enjoy it immensely. I also like railway modelling, but in the garden - though plans for my own are at a very early stage. You may think this bit sounds a bit weird, or even sad, but I can tell you it makes a great antidote to work. If alternatively this sounds like a great hobby to you, click here for further info on the Association of 16mm Narrow Gauge Modellers - they produce an excellent magazine, I hear the editor's very good... I digress. Other major interests (and I have wide-ranging interests...) are probably topped by cinema - I'm a huge fan and would go at least once every week if I could. Included in a long list of favourite films are American Beauty, Moulin Rouge, Local Hero and of course the Lord of the Rings movies, while I've also enjoyed discovering more obscure titles such as Polish Director Krzysztof Kieslowski's excellent Three Colours Trilogy. DVD was a revelation to me, offering cinema quality home viewing the way that video never could, and my DVD collection of favourite movies is steadily growing. My musical tastes are equally wide-ranging, and have recently been re-ignited. She Who Must Be Obeyed suggested that in 2004 I had a mid-life crisis, whereas I'm convinced that at the age of 42 I simply learnt to have fun again. After several years of listening to nothing but news station Radio Five Live, and being very learned on the ways of the world as a result) I rediscovered loud music. Since then the audio systems of various test cars have struggled under a various mix of very loud sounds, though I particularly like proper rock - the more dinosaur progressive the better. In My CD collection (and these days on my iTunes - what a brilliant piece of software...) you'll find early Genesis, Dire Straits, Marillion and particularly the brilliance that is Pink Floyd, along with slightly more recent Guns n' Roses, U2 and Metallica. The arrival of digital radio and the audio brilliance that is the station Planet Rock has only served to increase my volume... My CDs also include plenty of examples of my other favourite musical genre, Celtic music - 'diddly diddly' to those who don't understand it. You won't find any modern plastic pop, which I despise. I also love books. Rosemary finds it mildly irritating that I can't just sit and relax, I have to be reading something - anything. Favourite factual reading tends towards old Welsh railways and Celtic history, in terms of novels I used to adore sci-fi, have come to greatly enjoy the work of Iain Banks, and more recently discovered some more obscure tastes such as Paulo Coelho and the endurance test that is 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. And finally, before you all drop off with boredom, I am of course convinced that I have both a best-selling novel and an Oscar-winning film screenplay in me - if only I could find the time to write them... Andrew C, 47 going on 31, September 2008

Andrew C's Biog – all the things you never wanted to know about me

CVs tell you about someone's career but precious little about the person themselves - on this page I have perhaps gone to the opposite extreme. Okay it's self-centred and probably brimming with more than you want to know, but it's the one point on the site where I get to be just me, so I make no excuses!

Andrew Charman arrived in the world on 23 August 1961, at Redhill hospital, Surrey - I pass the place several times a week except that now it is a housing estate. Most of my life I have lived three miles further south in Horley, once a town, now a satellite of the ever-expanding monolith that is Gatwick Airport.

My education was at Horley's Court Lodge School. In those days I used to walk a mile or more right across town to school, something my kids would be horrified by, but curiously I now live five minutes walk from said school - or I would, if it too had not become a housing estate. A curious towering and monument-like slice of the school building remains, serving as a youth club., with Horley Town FC now occupying the old playing fields.

It was at school that I first got the clue where my life would lead. My mother loves to tell stories of my reading daily newspapers aged five, and in English class I was the one who always had to stand up and read my stories out loud. I ended up with seven O-levels (to the younger ones among you reading this, O-levels were the ancient predecessor to GCSEs) and a pair of A-levels.
To be honest I didn't know what I wanted to do. All through school there was a plan for me to become a design draftsman but I don't know where that came from - it certainly wasn't the family trade as my father combined towing planes at Gatwick with driving coaches. Anyway I reached sixth form without enough lessons to fill the week and a friend suggested I do the photography course; "I'm doing it too, we can have a laugh." Alan Taylor, wherever you are, thanks for launching my career...

The sensible way to become a photographer is to go to college - I decided to try freelancing each weekend at Brands Hatch and meanwhile went to work on the photographic counter of a record shop in Horley. I'm glad I did, coz things turned out okay in the end and we had a lot of fun. Figures from our shop helped compile the weekly pop charts at a time when they meant something, so we used to get loads of freebies from record companies, especially free tickets - during that wonderful early 1980s period I saw everything from Thin Lizzy to Frankie Goes To Hollywood and Marillion - lots of Marilion. That all came to an end in 1985 when I joined the local paper and got myself a proper career - more on which you'll find by clicking here. The shop by the way still exists, except it's now an insurance brokers and the spot by the window where my Burmese boss and I spent many hours watching the girls go by was for a long time occupied by s tropical fish tank...

It was while working at the local paper that I met my wife Rosemary, in 1987. We got to know each other at Brands Hatch, despite the fact she lived around three miles away from me. She was going through the race school, and we briefly had plans to race an MGB together but instead spent what little money we had on having a nice honeymoon following our marriage in May 1988. I never have raced a car - still wouldn't mind trying if anyone wants to offer me a drive...

Three years of peace ended in April 1991 with the arrival of our first son James, followed by Stewart in March 1995 and Megan in December 1997. Stewart was born shortly before we moved back to Horley, after a seven year stint in Sharpthorne, near East Grinstead in Sussex, during which we became one of the thousands of negative-equity victims - now that was a fun time.

Eventually in 1995 we moved to a nice three-bedroomed house in Horley, which was slowly redecorated, a constant battle between Rosemary's desire to create rooms the way she likes them and my hate for the task of redecorating. But the long-term aim was always to move to Mid-Wales - originally we thought not likely to happen until the Charman Three Terrors had left school. But we suddenly realised we could move in the summer of 2007 without causing them too much damage, and we went for it - and then the credit crunch happened. Our Surrey house sale fell through five times and we eventually sold it in August 2008, having been living in a lovely new five-bedroom detached in Llanfair Caereinion, Powys since October 2007 - financially it was a big, big hit which as I write I am only just beginning to start the recovery from. The one redeeming factor is that our life in Wales is 100 times better than it was in Surrey and we wouldn't move back.

Llanfair Caereinion is the business end of the Welshpool & Llanfair Light Railway, focus of my major interest outside motoring, funny little railways - narrow gauge ones to use the proper title. I have been the line's Press Officer for more than a decade, for many years possibly the farthest flung Press Officer around! Since moving into the district we've been able to get more prominently involved - I now work in the railway's workshops repairing and restoring steam locos and am training to be a locomotive fireman, hopefully one day a driver, while Rosemary splits her time between the railway tea rooms and gardens, and the kids do their bit too. We all enjoy it immensely.

I also like railway modelling, but in the garden - though plans for my own are at a very early stage. You may think this bit sounds a bit weird, or even sad, but I can tell you it makes a great antidote to work. If alternatively this sounds like a great hobby to you, click here for further info on the Association of 16mm Narrow Gauge Modellers - they produce an excellent magazine, I hear the editor's very good...

I digress. Other major interests (and I have wide-ranging interests...) are probably topped by cinema - I'm a huge fan and would go at least once every week if I could. Included in a long list of favourite films are American Beauty, Moulin Rouge, Local Hero and of course the Lord of the Rings movies, while I've also enjoyed discovering more obscure titles such as Polish Director Krzysztof Kieslowski's excellent Three Colours Trilogy. DVD was a revelation to me, offering cinema quality home viewing the way that video never could, and my DVD collection of favourite movies is steadily growing.

My musical tastes are equally wide-ranging, and have recently been re-ignited. She Who Must Be Obeyed suggested that in 2004 I had a mid-life crisis, whereas I'm convinced that at the age of 42 I simply learnt to have fun again. After several years of listening to nothing but news station Radio Five Live, and being very learned on the ways of the world as a result) I rediscovered loud music. Since then the audio systems of various test cars have struggled under a various mix of very loud sounds, though I particularly like proper rock - the more dinosaur progressive the better. In My CD collection (and these days on my iTunes - what a brilliant piece of software...) you'll find early Genesis, Dire Straits, Marillion and particularly the brilliance that is Pink Floyd, along with slightly more recent Guns n' Roses, U2 and Metallica. The arrival of digital radio and the audio brilliance that is the station Planet Rock has only served to increase my volume... My CDs also include plenty of examples of my other favourite musical genre, Celtic music - 'diddly diddly' to those who don't understand it. You won't find any modern plastic pop, which I despise.

I also love books. Rosemary finds it mildly irritating that I can't just sit and relax, I have to be reading something - anything. Favourite factual reading tends towards old Welsh railways and Celtic history, in terms of novels I used to adore sci-fi, have come to greatly enjoy the work of Iain Banks, and more recently discovered some more obscure tastes such as Paulo Coelho and the endurance test that is 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

And finally, before you all drop off with boredom, I am of course convinced that I have both a best-selling novel and an Oscar-winning film screenplay in me - if only I could find the time to write them...

Andrew C, 47 going on 31, September 2008