About The Book
In this book, being an autobiography, the chapters outlining the different themes are intermittent because the chapters are chronological. The book has two sections, Section: 1 describes both the life experiences and the engineering career, and Section 2 describes Alex’s spiritual journey.
The first few chapters in the book describe the young life in a very poor village in the Northeast of Scotland. The young family had no plumbing or electricity in their home for the first twelve years of Alex’s life. When Alex was four years old, Britain declared war on Germany and joined World War 2, (WW2). Many serious situations were scary, but there were also many fun times. Life after the war resumed until this naive young man started to work as an apprentice in a manufacturing factory; and as mandated, started further technical education, in which he excelled. After his apprenticeship ended, he got married and had two sons. He then emigrated to Canada, followed by his family after two months. Soon after two girls were added to the family. They now had two Scottish boys and two Canadian girls.
The company where he served his apprenticeship hired a new personnel manager. This gentleman had only one leg, his plane had been shot down during the war. Alex’s career philosophy was born when he was twenty years old, when a personnel manager told Alex, that because you have progressed through your apprenticeship the way you had, you should, “Change industries, at least every five years”. He reasoned that in five years Alex would know all he needed to know about that industry, so what else would there be for him? This early philosophy was strengthened for Alex when he read this other quote, “Us engineers are a peculiar lot, we see a rough road and make it smooth, not for ourselves, because we move on to other challenges”. Alex never aspired to climb the hierarchy of any company but rather sought new engineering challenges. This resulted in a very exciting and successful career for Alex.
Alex’s family experienced some terrible shocks when their fifteen-year-old son and thirteen-year-old daughter died in successive years. Alex’s second daughter died a few years ago.
Midway through his life, Alex had experiences that caused him to ponder what his life was all about, and what the reason was for it all. This was when his spirituality started developing and became a focus for him for the remainder of his life.
Other books by the author:
