The 7 ages of
Frank Selkirk
It was not untypical, of course, that the apparent reason I started the new job - my previous knowledge of Mandarin - was never used in selling wheels to China! Actually one day, a couple of years into the job, I was suddenly asked to go to the board room. Macro-promotion??? (There were 7000 employed in the factory). Anyhow I was sat between the Chairman and the Marketing Director. A delegation from the China Motor Corporation were over wanting to buy a wheel - factory! One of the delegation could speak french and our parent firm had supplied a french interpreter. But could I find out what was actually being said? Well, fine, but I hadn’t spoken Chinese for 4 years and my speciality was aviation navigation terminology, not power presses and flanges and paint plants! I did what I could, and that evening sat at dinner between the Chairman of the China Motor Corporation and our Managing Director my language did reasonably come back! But why on earth had I been given no warning, no opportunity to check on terminology or refresh my use of the language (I had since studied New Testament Greek, for example)? An earlyish warning that the Directorate were not very bright!
Be that as it may. Anyhow, I had started filling in schedules of customers requirements in the form the factory required. Before I left I was effectively responsible for the export of the whole range of our wheels and of sales of agricultural wheels within the UK .
I had bought shortly after starting the wheel-selling job a bungalow: 
interesting to move in when there was no furniture! Luckily the first few nights I slept in the Dormobile which I could put in the garage. That Christmas I flew over to Jersey to spend the break with my parents and bring back a mini car the had bought for me to use instead (It was a Riley Elf). I was due to fly the car back on 27th December, but the snow was so thick in Jersey there was neither any flying nor could I get to the airport. The next day I could duly get to Bournemouth and inched my way north. But it was strange to have to explain as to why I was a day late back to work when Shropshire had had virtually no snow!
But there was more to life than just work! Fortunately my boss’s secretary and his boss’s secretary were both interested in singing, as I was, so I was duly invited along to join the Wrekin Choral Society (it’s since changed it’s name).
This, together with my involvement with various local churches, enabled me to make many friends. In addition I found that there were weekend residential “Adult education courses” held in the glorious setting of Attingham Park: and it was at one of these that I met the first real love of my life. Unfortunately for a variety of reasons after 10 weeks or so of meeting whenever we could we decided that we must part: I know it led to my punching trees in frustration!
I started taking my summer holidays in the Mediterranean, especially with groups of other late-20s. On one of these holidays in Cyprus (undivided then: we stayed in Bellapais) I again was fortunate to meet another engaging young lady, but alas again things fizzled out a few months after return (we lived a long way apart in the UK).
Feeling that I was waiting for “dead men's shoes” I transferred from selling wheels to coffee vending machines. This involved moving back to Bilston where I had been encouraged into working in sales. I also moved house to a converted primitive Methodist 
chapel in the west of Wolverhampton, though for a while continuing my contacts in Telford. Just as well, for another very important young lady came along, one Sarah Webley who put up with me for nearly a year. Even now, 51 years on, we are still good friends!
But then at the end of January 1969 the miracle finally occurred and Sheena allowed me to court her! Within 10 weeks or so we were engaged and the day after my 31st birthday we were duly married in Harston
(using a service largely re-written by the ever-arrogant Frank). It must be recorded that the organist was my longest standing, dear friend Alison. Her Father co-officiated at the service with Sheena’s uncle (Peter Webb). Alison’s grandfather had “married” my parents, and I must have first met Alison when she was a baby (she’s 6 days older than Sheena) and living (as was I) in Loughborough. (There were 4 priests involved in the wedding service: The local rector, Peter Webb, Tommy Evans and my Best Man, Tony Roberts)