Born Reefton New Zealand, a small town in the middle of the South island.
Having the distinction of being the first town in New Zealand to have Hydro Electric power.

Although born in Reefton I spent the first four and a half years of my life in a house built on a terrace just north of the Snow river over looking the Reefton Greymouth road.

Only two real memories from this time where jumping of the shed roof and cutting my hand, with the trip to Reefton for stitches filled with "keep your hand up".

I carry the scar and stitch marks to this day.

The next incident came about when I hitch hiked to school.
I can recall walking down the road to catch the bus and I car pulled up and offered me a ride.
At not quite five years old I was unaware of the dangers and now thank my lucky stars that it was a friendly incident.
I was first to school that day.
Probably still scarred from the telling of I got when I got home that night.
It seems my older brother saw me get in the car and told mother and all kinds of panic ensued that I had no knowledge of.

It was not long after this that we moved east to the Township of Ashburton.
Where in the suburb of Tinwald my father had purchased a hut house that we lived in until My Grandfather and uncle had built us a new house which I was not to leave until I turned twenty one.
I attended the local primary school which had inherent dangers to get to that would send the OSH (Occupational Safety and Health) man of these days into a fit.

We had to cross the railway line, sometimes climbing through the rakes of wagons, which got real scary if they started to shunt, across the main road and past the Blacksmith shop.
I used to love and stand and watch the old smithy making the shoes in the forge and fitting them to the Horses.

The last year of my under achieving at primary school my older brother had a part time job after school at the big grain store, which was straight across the road from the blacksmith shop, we used to go in and have sack barrow races around to stacks of grain.
We also became very good at climbing the stacks using the ears of the bags and foot placing in the gaps.
I recall it was always nerve racking jumping from one stack to another when quite a few feet above the alley way.

What did I say about the OSH man having a fit.

Then I started secondary school, well schools really.
You see Ashburton in those days boasted what was called the Ashburton Technical College and the High School.
This boiled down to if you came from the working classes and had a fairly high probability of working with your hands you wound up in a trades class as I did at the Technical College.
Those other unfortunates deemed only able to work with their books and brains wound up at the High school.

This was very healthy for the town as there was always fierce competition on the sports fields between the two schools.
Unfortunately after changing the name of the Technical college to Haketere College, This lasted a year, then they amalgamated the schools into Ashburton College.
Many people still see this as not a very smart move for many and varied reasons.

Four years three High school names later I left and took up a Petrol Mechanics apprenticeship, with the local BMC and Pontiac dealer, which I duly completed with a Trade Certificate.

It was at one of the end of school year dances put on in one of the Church halls that I meet a Girl who four years later was to become my wife to whom I am still married.
We started our married life by moving to Twizel which was a construction town for a very large power development scheme.
We spent four years in Twizel and both our Daughter and Son were born there.

It was after the firm that I was working for servicing Terex pulled out of town that I started on a life as a self employed contract Mechanic.
We moved into a small village called Fairton just North of Ashburton and I had to get a job with a contractor for a year just so I could get a mortgage for the property we bought.
Then it was back to contracting again.

Four years later saw us move to Christchurch to take up a position contracting to a firm specializing in Detroit Diesels and I honed skills with lathe and welder doing all kinds of repowers and replants of motors and transmissions.

A few years back I decided to stop banging my head and blacking finger nails in favor of making a living from the internet, This is turning into a very interesting challenge, and a huge learning curve, but I am loving every moment of it.

I still love the hands on stuff and have learnt enough to put together and run websites for a friends business as well as assisting other friends with their sites.
I am also learning and trading options on the Australian and American Markets and just love the Technical Analysis.
Got any questions on websites or option trading then let's talk because between us I am sure we can work it out.

Cheers
Neil Lilley
AKA kiwineil