From Cornwall to the Middle East, by accident

  I met David Penhaligon in Holman’s R and D department. David Penhaligon — the Liberal MP with the trademark grin, the motorbike, and the ability to talk to absolutely anyone without a hint of pretension. Holman’s was where the clever tinkerers, the practical inventors, and the quietly brilliant engineers lived. David always had a soft spot for that world — the real Cornish economy, not the postcard version. He worked there before his parliamentary existence and I did a stint in R and D during my apprenticeship Holman’s R&D in those days was a proper crucible: bright young apprentices, old‑hand engineers who could machine a part to a tenth by feel alone, and the odd future parliamentarian quietly absorbing how real industry worked. Penhaligon having been one of the lads there before politics explains so much about why he resonated with people — he’d actually lived the graft, not just toured it. Me doing a stint in R&D during my apprenticeship helped I think with the...

When my father was young he worked as a fisherman out of Osmington Mills for the Miller family and met the love of his life in the Picnic Inn. This is for him. The seagull swoops, banks, dives and disappears into a misty haze cast by the sea. He watches, lids low, the bird a slipping stitch in the fleeting morning, until its cry fades and memory drifts He sits where the cliff crumbles, the familiar bay before him, fisherman’s knot fingers play the old pot rope like prayer beads of salt and hemp. The wind is a whisper of old skippers' tales, and in the hush between waves, he counts the catches of time the ones of renown, the ones that got away, the one that kissed his cheek in Osmington then danced with him through life.

  We called it the Oasis. A few miles out from Dubai, past the glass and the graft. The road was good—quiet enough to talk, smooth enough to think. We’d head out with a flask and a sandwich, no rush, just a trip away from the city.   Al Marmoom never disappointed. There was always something to see. Fish made nests in the lake sand—accurately fluted, like decorative dishes. Beetles chased the car, combative and absurd. Like Don Quixote. Flamingos moved off in a honking crowd when we got too close. Dragonflies often swarmed the car—sometimes a dozen, sometimes a hundred. A raptor took a pigeon for its lunch, then rested in the reeds. Deer slept beneath low bushes enjoying the shade. Tall African birds leaned around the scrub to watch us go past.   We never visited without a natural treat. Sometimes it was sound. Sometimes movement. Sometimes stillness. It wasn’t a spectacle. It was a system. And we were allowed to witness it. We took a few ...

  The Spider and the Abyss I a m enjoying my retirement and have more time now to look around me. One morning I stepped out into the garden and stood close to a spider’s web. On the fence is a jasmine, about six horizontal feet from the nearest twig of the crab apple tree that stands in the middle of the garden. Suspended five foot in the air between these two points was a spider’s web, sporting the familiar circular net at its centre, complete with an attentive spider. What was most remarkable were the anchor silks. One silk thread led from the jasmine to a twig in the apple tree, slightly higher than the central net. Midway along its length, a second thread branched off—forming another edge of the web’s frame and extending back across to the jasmine. A third anchor silk descended to a lower twig on the jasmine, completing the triangle. The structure was astonishing—not just in its geometry, but in its execution. How did the spider, so small and seemingly unequipped for surv...

Back to the national construction company After several years during which I worked in Qatar for a consultant and co-ran my own safety consultancy in the UK, Insight Safety, I re-joined the group and was offered the senior safety role in Dubai with dozens of officers, high-profile builds, and a safety culture still finding its footing. It was here, amid the dust and heat, that I realised just how far I’d come from those early mornings in Cheltenham. The work demanded not just technical oversight but cultural fluency, logistical coordination, and the ability to navigate layered hierarchies—contractors, consultants, and clients, each with their own expectations and interpretations of “safe practice.” It was a place where heat, haste, and hierarchy collided daily, and where the margin for error was often razor-thin. One of the projects I worked on involved very deep trenching—deeper than anything I’d seen in the UK. Unsupported, but properly and safely stepped, carved into compacted...

  The Flowering Bush Qatar is a desert country. In Doha, the city blooms—palms and bougainvillea tended by an army of gardeners, irrigation lines humming beneath the pavements. But out in the suburbs and beyond, bushes are rare and trees even rarer. The land reverts to dust and rock, broken only by pylons and the occasional discarded tyre. One day as I was driving between sites I spotted a large bush flowering beside the road. Delicate white blossoms were scattered like confetti across the sand. It was such a lovely sight—unexpected, magical. I pulled off the road and drove across the gravel to get a closer look. I wound down the window and leaned out, peering at the flowers, admiring their grace against the grit. Then I sensed movement—an energetic commotion from inside the bush. A moment later, an Indian gentleman emerged, adjusting his trousers with brisk efficiency. He had, presumably, been relieving himself in the privacy of this rare and handy bush. And now, from his ...