The Day The Nene Turned Green

It was the Summer of 1988 and I was still an apprentice with no defined role other than Analytical Services at Anglian Water Authority (AWA). No longer required to perform coastal waters sampling I somehow found myself looking after the Auto-samplers, the cleaning and maintenance of which was a full-time job in its own right. …

New HA Tapes

The phrase Revolution has been thrown around my 30 year working career as some kind of business mantra (no Opel pun intended). However I never thought I would go full circle and find myself sampling in a modern day equivalent of the Bedford HA Van #, and yet that is exactly what I have been doing of …

Old New Posts – Bob’s Records circa 2009

It was whilst working on my latest OU assignment that I was overcome with a warm gooey feeling of nostalgia. I always listen to music whilst I work and the media player on my PC 'shuffled' Til I Die' by the Beach Boys followed by Creature of Doom by The Only Ones, both albums (Surf's …

The Bedford HA Van Tapes an Introduction

Thirty years ago I embarked on my very first job, and subsequent unintentional career in the Water Industry. Not realizing it at the time, it was the best job in the world! The 12 month contract consisted of two parts, the first part was to sample every (600 plus) private Drinking Water boreholes in East …