About Me - Paul Doherty

I'll start somewhere near the beginning; this is a picture of me with my Dad when I was about 1 1/2 years old. It's taken somewhere in Manchester where I was born in 1965. My dad drove buses, played football and played more football. He also worked very hard and was a great Dad. My Mum worked in a stockbrokers (Henriques, if I remember rightly), where I recall going once or twice with my Dumper trucks and loading them up with paper "holes" from the mighty mainframe computer. This was a foretaste of my future as I now work in an investment bank in IT. Strangely, my younger brother was a great fan of his police pedal car and now - you've guessed it - is a policeman. Who says the future is unwritten ?

At about 4 years old, we moved to Stockport from Moss Side. In Stockport, I had an early taste of fame as a choirboy in St.Winifreds School Choir - yes, that "Grandma" song - and reached the heady heights of appearing with the choir on Stars On Sunday. We sang with a big Aboriginal guy called Khamal, I think. The producers didn't pick up on my star qualities and no doubt were later sacked for missing such a great opportunity. I left St.Winifreds before they hit the Sex and Drugs years with their Christmas No.1 hit "There's No One Quite Like Grandma" the song that managed to keep John Lennons "Just Like Starting Over" off the top spot - quality always shines through!

Fast forward to 1977 - The Buzzcocks, Magazine, Joy Division, The Fall, The Bee Gees - punk is kicking off in Manchester (ed: strike the Bee Gees), and my parents have been watching too much of The Good Life and decide to move the family down to Taunton, Somerset. I managed to get a place in the local boys Grammar School ( Huish Grammar School ) which was an all boys school and as we were the last ever Grammar intake in Taunton, we had no younger kids to bully for the next 5 years. There was later to be salvation as girls came into the 6th form, but by that time we were fully formed misogynists (later cured), versed in the fine arts of rugby, sweaty wrenches and the Wurzels. By 1981, punk had reached Taunton but my Mum wouldn't let me get my ear pierced. To compensate, I staggered and swayed through many a skittle alley disco with dried soap in my hair and rough cider in my belly (often not for too long).

At this time, a bicycle was my main form of transport. I had a 5 speed Sun GT racer that was fast. Well, it was until the flares of my school trousers got caught in the chain-ring: then it went fast in the vertical plane. I ruined that bike when I crashed into the back of a parked car whilst trying to use my secret aerodynamic properties to streamline against a headwind. The forks got bent back so far that I couldn't turn right - nor could my balls.

So in short, that was Taunton. In truth, I had a great time there and now love visiting with my 2 children, Maria-Mercedes and Rufus, and their Mum, Carolina. Unfortunately my Mum will be leaving Taunton soon so there will be no more holiday home and I'll be sadder for it.

My Family.

Carolina is an Argentinian. She still often reminds me of this fact as I struggle to build a fire in our Barbecue at home - Argentinians are good at Barbecues....they say! We met in Cusco, Peru in 1999 after I had taken a "career break" following an unfulfilling couple of years drinking too much and behaving badly as a C grade "yuppie" (do they still exist ?) in Canary Wharf, London. I could tell lots of tales about the 9 months I spent not working, but instead, I'll point you to my first ever foray into the world of IT - a vintage HTML website written in 1999 after my return to the UK. This proved to be useful because it persuaded my interviewers at Morgan Stanley (where I still work) that I would be a productive employee in IT. Some might say that the jury is still out on that particular decision.

One thing that isn't documented on that site is how Carolina and I came to be together. As I said, we met in Cusco, Peru where she had gone whilst on holiday. While there, she invited me to visit her in