Autobiography

hugely rewarding. I would say to someone who
is 50 and wanted to become an airline pilot
that it was too late, but that doesn’t mean to
say he or she can’t learn to fly.
If you think these things are past you, you
should think again. When you reach 40 or 50
or even 60 or 70, don’t feel it’s too late. As the
sportswear manufacturer Nike says, ‘Just do
it’.
Many years ago I built a house in Portugal and
was at a local garden centre selecting plants,
shrubs and small palm trees no more then four
or five feet tall for my garden. Having
completed my purchase and making my way
back to my car I saw one of the centre’s
employees loading a number of 20 foot palm
trees onto a delivery lorry.
I asked him: ‘Who buys trees that tall?’ ‘Very
old people,’ he replied.
For me it was a perfect metaphor. You can
plant a tree at any age in your life; the only
question to ask is how big it should be.
Ambitions and desires change with age and
those ‘very old’ people will have had as much
satisfaction from the palms they bought as I
did from my mine. Keep pursuing your dreams
but keep them realistic.
Despite being happier now than I have
probably ever been, two or three times a year
I have a nightmare where I arrive back at
Green Street and I have lost everything.
Bizarrely, I am in my Phantom and as I climb
out of my car, and take my tool bag and spirit
level out of the boot, my mum is waiting for
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