[SEL] Intro

[Dave Croft]

I am 65 years old and I live in a small terraced house in Warrington in the
North West of England.
I have been retired since 1995 after working as a technical officer for
British Telecom for 38 years, ajob I loved.
I care for my disabled wife Marjorie & as I am starting to suffer from severe
arthritis, the bigger engines are getting too much for me now.
I now mainly show old bicycles & my collection of hot air engines.
I only discovered stationary engines in 1978 when a friend, who knew that I
liked to look in scrapyards asked me to look for a Lister "D" for him.
At the time I was into electronics & I was looking for electronic parts.
In a country scrapyard I found two Lister Junior 3HP engines on cast iron
beds coupled to air compressors.
They were painted admiralty grey & had only been test run. I asked the price
and managed to get them both for 25 UKP. (35US$)
They looked fascinating so I sold one and kept the other.
I thought I would go to a vintage show & find out if I had bought a
collectable engine.
I put the engine in the back of my van & on arrival I was surprised to be
waved straight in without paying for admission.
I found the exhibitors to be very helpful & I was immediately hooked.
Many more engines followed & over the years I have owned over 100 engines
with the average at one time being about 20.
More than 22 years ago I saw an advert in the Stationary Engine magazine for
someone to swap engines with a Danish collector.
I replied & that is how I met my late good friend Jens Lauritsen.
We exchanged over 20 English engines for Danish models & I stayed with Jens
to help with his museum a number of times.
I still have a number of Danish & Swedish friends so if anyone needs help in
that regard, just ask.
I now only have 4 engines, all rare Danish models.
I sold the majority of my collection as my wife's disabilities got worse & we
used the money to have good holidays.
I don't regret it as we can't travel now but we still have the memories!
The list has revitalised my engine interests & I do what I can to help others.
My other interests are Good beer from all over the world & Indian curries!
Also family history. (See my Homepage) 
The latest event in my life was almost 5 years ago now when I was knocked 
off my bicycle by an 85 year old motorist.
I was taken to the local hospital by ambulance & as it was a busy time & I seemed 
reasonably OK I had to wait to see the doctor. I don't remember any of this  but it 
seems I left the hospital & walked home. (Only about 500 yds)
I told Marjorie, my wife that I had suffered a bump & went to bed.
The following morning she couldn't wake me and a second ambulance took me back
to the hospital as an emergency case.
It seems that I had been bleeding all night in 3 places in my brain.
I came out of coma after a week & was released after a month in hospital.
It would have been longer but as I lived so near they let me out for Christmas.
This group had a collection for me and it was very useful as well as the thought of what 
you had done helped me recover.
Now I still have short term memory problems but basically I am OK.
I received compensation for the accident & I was able to pass on the majority of your money
to another list member who had a similar accident.
Dave Croft
Warrington
http://oldengine.org/members/croft/homepage
http://community.webshots.com/user/crftdv