AFTER and BEFORE

AFTER and BEFORE, using the same "the last is first" listing of this blog.

I was brought-up at Lampeter, a small market town in West Wales, (U.K.) in the 1950' s. That would have made it a contented childhood, somewhat isolated from the rest of the world. Although, saying that, I was in a fall-out shelter on the weekend of the Cuba crisis when World War III was expected, as an R.O.C. Observer, (and I was still at school). That makes me now old enough to be my father, or to be his age at some point.

I started off as Tony, but like my other brother Fred, ended up as Tom, and like Tom, spent some time in the Royal Navy, not to be confused with Tom Leworthy the sailor who gets to the top of the Google page.

My 8 years in the Royal Navy are long gone. Later, I spent four years in art college, followed by 3 years in a social wilderness in Brighton researching and writing a book on 'The New Testament Gospels'. This was a peculiar obsession because I didn't even believe in God, nor had I any interest in Christianity. At that time, for anonymity and a change of personality, I changed my name to Arthur. The 'confusion' continued for another 3 years in a shift-obsessed non-job, working as a guard on British Rail. That time gave me the space to research the basics of 'The I Ching'.

Great chances and changes were about to happen.

By the time I got to meet Confucius that's all that was left were a couple of books and this statue in New York.