Hello my name is Tony Cartlidge 64 Years old and I have a family of five children,    all grown up with the exception of one soon to be teenage girl.

I have been married 28 years and have had a variety of jobs

British Railways loco fireman This was when most trains were steam driven.

When eventually diesel and electric locos took over the rail way system and I was made redundant.

As I was only in my early twenties at this time I decided to join the Royal Marines.

After five years I had to leave on compassionate grounds due to domestic problems.

Although there were lots of civilian jobs around that time I decided to do a government skill centre training course in Plumbing. About two thirds the way through the course my teacher took me to one side and told me that I would not make a plumber and was taken off the course.

 I am not a person to be easily defeated so I applied for a factory job and the people who were my work colleagues were the focus of my attention. I began to do small plumbing jobs for them out of work hours. Eventually after some  years I felt confident enough to become fully self-employed. I went on to do my City and Guilds and am pleased to say that after three years I achieved a distinction in all parts of the course, from sanitary to gas fitting and continuing to work as a plumber. Some years later I stopped full time plumbing as I never really earned that much. A plumber I may have been, but a business man I was not.

There is a lesson to be learnt here. You can be the world’s best self-employed tradesman brilliant at what you do .If you cannot do the business stuff though it may well be a waste of time.

There were baggage handling jobs available at Manchester Airport. I applied and after a rigorous selection procedure I worked as a temp for one year and then as a permanent employee for about eight years after.

During the down time while waiting for aircraft to come onto final approach I became interested in electronics. (This would be 1992/3) I taught myself electronics as a hobby  and decided on my time off to go back to college but this time to do a basic City and Guilds in analogue electronics and TV servicing Most of my final results were mediocre and I just managed to get through with a pass. However I did make a credit for the practical work I had done. I never did much TV work as digital was on the horizon.  Old televisions with the TX10 chassis for example were soon to go by the way.

My job at the airport was soon to be privatised and with a wage drop of nearly one hundred pounds per week it was time to go. I decided on a fresh start and we moved to Accrington where I cycled fourteen miles five to six times a week over the hills to my new found job in a litho ink manufacturing company in Darwen, potting and lidding gold and silver inks.

Electronic project construction is a lonely but a well rewarding hobby which I have now done for many years. When I decide on a project I find a basic schematic which shows a desired output and take great delight in altering things round a bit here and a bit there or even make it part of another circuit.

 The amount of different components you need for most projects are hardly never available from one supplier (Murphy’s law) unless its in kit form. It is a nuisance to have to spend ages and ages on the net finding suppliers which have your particular components at the right price, then to find there is a minimum order charge.  Our eBid shop, (Honest John Electronic Components) will endeavour to deliver goods in the quantities for the hobbyist no more having to spend over the odds making up orders to evade paying P&P

We are new to eBid but have been using another auction site for several years. We have a 99% positive feedback rating. Which was 100% until a customer had complained about an item we had supplied. It had broken on first use and he  gave us bad feedback. He did this without any messaging or  contacting us at all.  The first we knew about it was when we saw his feedback. 

We had already sold about 12 of this item which were all tested before dispatch and have received good positive feedback from them all. So any customer that has any negative feeling towards us please message us before giving any feedback. We did feel a bit peeved about this as we try our very best to please our customers.

 It will be a while before our shop is fully populated as we are just getting the hang of the operation but please pay us a visit from time to time as new listings are activated. Thank you for reading about me and my partner.