Now aged 90, my Dad was the inspiration for a life serving adventurers of all types.
I guess looking back at work in the 1970’s much of it could be seen as adventurous these days. As a salesman (Air Compressors for the mining industry), his job took him places exotic and strange. He’d come back with cunningly whittled gifts and tails of crossing Check Point Charlie and the ferocious border guards of Cold War Germany.
In the 1980’s he was ahead of the game, pioneering this brown cardigan with socks and squash shoes look as he risked this boys camping trip (me in red). Nerdily this was when I mapped the woods around our home, partly inspired by the maps he’d bring back from trips into the Mountains and Forests of Chile.
So where, Dad, does adventure come from? Simply it’s inspired. I’ve not become the big adventurer. In this game you meet so many people inspired to be out there. For me the honour is in serving these people the best I can so they go on to inspire more. But I have a debt of gratitude to my Dad, without whom I’d never be so curious about the wider world and how we find our way around it.
Happy birthday Tony Overton!
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