Hank Marvin Custom Shop 1959 Fiesta Red Stratocaster Greg Fessler Master Builder guitar review

Greg Fessler Master Builder Custom Shop NOS 1959 Fiesta Red Stratocaster review

This incarnation of the 1959 Stratocaster is a limited run guitar, with some of its features based on the 1959 Stratocaster that British instrumental guitar player Hank Marvin of the Shadows played from 1959-late 1961. 

If you're not familiar with Hank's playing, he is worth checking out for his signature guitar sound and technique that launched thousands of bands in the 1960's. See more pictures and info on Hank's guitar below this review.

Hank B. Marvin of the Shadows in 1960

with his famous 1959 Fiesta Red Stratocaster

This Greg Fessler 1959 Master builder Stratocaster is a great looking guitar, supplied in variation on the original style tweed case with red plush lining. It looks like the guitar that British guitarist Hank Marvin played between 1959 to 1961, which helped create the demand for Fiesta red guitars outside of the US in the 1960's and is certain to appeal to players emulating his style.

When you open the case you're greeted by an eyeful of a glorious fiesta red paint, Birdseye maple and gold plated parts. Much the same amazement ensues as when Hank opened the case of his 1959 for the first time over 60 years ago. 

The guitar is in NOS - New Old Stock finish, so looks 'as new' but brought forward to the modern day. Like you just opened the case on a 1959 guitar.

This is it! the complete package from the Fender Custom shop 
now includes a build sheet in a Custom Shop embossed folder (front).

The basic shopping list starts with a 2 piece Alder body, finished in Fiesta Red cellulose, a 2AA Birdseye Maple neck in a light honey tint lacquer which is not too dark and looks great, not too much 'pippiness' to the Birdseye Maple and there are lovely shimmers of flame in the Maple too.

The fiesta red has the right colour shade which takes on different hues 
in different lights, just like the original guitars from the era. 
The shade for the 59 was replicated from the original DuPont paint Coral Red colour.

Gold hardware abounds from screws to metal parts which gives it that look of quality and the gold really sets off the red and the maple neck. 

The neck is a 21 fret vintage style but augmented with medium frets which are easy to play and features a 9.5" radius, not 'vintage' but easier to play and that enhances the playing experience. 

The 2AA Maple is attractively finished in a light honey tint cellulose lacquer which has a deep shine. The profile is described as '1960 oval' (which is similar to the modern Stratocaster 'C' shape), derived from a revised shape introduced in late 1958 superceding the 'V' boat hull shape neck of the earlier 56-57 Stratocasters and is a playing improvement over the chunkier feel of the earlier necks. 

The neck is a nice and easy play, the fretboard looks visually flatter than a true 1958 7.5" radius and playing is easier than a V shape or a sharper 7.5" radius vintage profile board, so the trade off is valid, why make life harder? 

(The 1956 Custom shop Stratocaster in contrast features a really chubby D section neck and is not as comfortable to play which is why I sold mine. It was ok as a guitar, but this 59 has just a much easier playing neck and quite a few people have identified the 56 neck as less easy to play.)

Strings are Fender 10's and I changed these right away for D'Addario 10-46's which are lighter string tension and what I fit to quite a few of my guitars and changed again to 9-42 D'Addario strings which has improved the guitar for me, I also use their 9-42 sets on other Stratocasters I own. I find this make and also the Ernie Ball 10's strings do very well and last. 

Classic appointments from the pre-CBS era

The electronics are taken care of with a set of Fat 50's pickups which are slightly hotter than the standard 50's set. The fitment of a 5 way switch from standard is much welcome, (the 1956 Custom shop in contrast I owned was fitted with a 3 way switch as standard and includes a 5 way in the accessories, a measure that means it is often changed right away). A vintage tone circuit with modification is fitted to the 1959.

Soundwise, these pickups are very close to the originals, they give a great sound and that is what it is all about. 

Out of the box:

For a big ticket guitar this one wasn't set up much at all which was a disappointment for a guitar of this price level, however I was able to do the work. The neck was right but the rest of it needed adjustment. So, off came the strings and on with the D'addario 10's. I had to adjust the bridge height and the saddle heights, plus cut the nut slots deeper to get the strings lower at the first fret. 

The bridge now has the 2-3mm height from the body and the trem works nicely. 

The 10's felt a bit inflexible so I changed them for D'Addario 9-42's and this has improved the guitar all round, the neck relief is better and the string heights are lower. The guitar plays very nicely now.

Do remember to insert the small spring from the spare springs pack in the brown envelope in the case pack into the Trem arm hole as this helps push the trem arm upwards and loads the arm end against the threads so the arm doesn't droop. Otherwise the arm winds in too far before you get resistance and wears the block threads out quicker.

Build quality:

The build quality is very good, the finish is vey good and there is really nothing to fault here.

Hardware:

Its the usual appointments here, but the gold plated metal parts really set it off. The machine heads are Fender stamped Kluson type units and you can see they have been greased, which the Mexican 50's and 60's guitars don't show any evidence of greasing. The machine heads are smooth in action.

Value for money:

A matter of opinion to some but this is a big ticket buy for many people and it has obvious appeal to certain players. It is not a cheap guitar but people who are likely to buy this are doing if for the Hank Marvin look and sound.

Overall evaluation:

A nice re-creation of a 1959 style guitar with some modern updates. Not a cheap guitar, but it is likely to appeal to some for what it portrays - a replication of Hank Marvin's original guitar (albeit not publicised as such). It has the look and a great sound which is the ideal combination. Mine should have been set up better but at least I was able do that. The poor set up may be detrimental in some people's view, but is fixable and was an oversight by the guitar shop. No real problem as I was able to do the adjustment.

Would I buy this again?

Yes. It is the perfect guitar I was after back in 1983 - Hank Marvin's Stratocaster, replicated in almost every respect. That's why I bought this one and chose it from the 7 on offer because it closely matched the wood grain on the original guitar, besides the colour etc.

The flatter board makes playing easier, although I do find that the modern Mexican reissues from 2015 onwards have very nice necks and play almost as well.

The lack of set up was not a big issue, I was able to do the work and it now plays like it should, it sounds and looks the part and I am very pleased with it. 

Most will likely buy for the Hank Marvin / Shadows connection, or for the look, the colour combination here is excellent.

The original 1959 guitar:

Cliff Richard (now Sir Cliff Richard), a British pop singer from 1958 organised the purchase of a 1959 Fender Stratocaster for Hank Marvin the lead guitarist of his backing band the Shadows.

This guitar literally launched a thousand bands or more. Thanks to the generosity of Cliff Richard, the fortunes of Fender instrument sales mushroomed in Europe and beyond. It also launched the Shadows into a career that would last for decades.

When guitarist Hank Marvin combined the guitar with a VOX AC15 amplifier and Meazzi echo machine, a signature sound was born. 

Immediately upon the release of the Shadows' single 'Apache' in June 1960 which went to Number 1, it heralded the launch of an instrumental pop music boom in the UK. 

It also inspired players like George Harrison, Brian May, Mark Knopfler and many others who would become famous in their own right years later, to take up the guitar.

From this seed many players would follow Hank's technique, learning from his recordings.

The original Hank Marvin Stratocaster guitar like our 59 here was Fiesta Red with a Birdseye Maple neck and fitted with gold hardware. 

The guitar was a sensation, it was said to be the first Stratocaster in private hands in the UK at the time. The importance of Cliff Richard's generosity in the gift of that guitar is immeasurable. 

Cliff was also instrumental so to speak in pushing their A&R man and producer Norrie Paramor into having the Shadows cut an instrumental single of their own, the resulting A side, 'Apache' written by Jerry Lordan, changed guitar history and is said to be the best guitar instrumental piece ever recorded and one of the most recorded guitar instrumentals.

Hank Marvin enjoyed a career that still continues, living in Australia has curtailed the Shadows performances away from his home there, but he still plays live over there.

Recapture the magic with this new creation of his 1959 guitar in all but signature version!

A rare picture of Cliff Richard with Hank's original 59 Stratocaster

Cliff was being measured for this pink jacket in a Soho tailor's in 1958 when he formally met Hank Marvin and Bruce Welch, who went on to play with Cliff for decades until 2009. 

Jet Harris (left) and Hank with Hank's original 59 Stratocaster

from the Shadows first album LP cover

From the Shadows to the fore EP cover -

These record covers served as free advertising for Fender!

E10 petrol is NOT Green..... It is destructive and less efficient, here's why..

Why we should stop E10 petrol before it gets started

E10 is a blend of 10% ethanol to 90% Petrol.

It sounds 'Green' but E10 fuel is far from it.... here are some good reasons to ditch it before it is foisted on us, even though we are no longer in the EU.

Let's dump E10 because....

1. It is less efficient than unblended 100% Petrol. You need to burn more E10 to get the same performance from 100% Petrol. Using more fuel and burning more CO2 to get the same performance? Not green.

2. Water condensation in fuel tanks combines with the Ethanol in E10 to make a corrosive to metal situation, helping to wreck car fuel systems. Ethanol also eats rubber fuel hoses and has caused vehicle fires. Costly.

3. Older cars may not be able to use E10 in their fuel systems. Many low mileage car users who are sometimes not well off will effectively be disenfranchised, and what for? No good reason.

4. CO2 will be burnt in sowing, harvesting, refining and delivering sugar crops from which the Ethanol is derived. This likely creates more CO2 than is likely to be saved. Green? no.

5. Sugar to be made into E10 fuel may be grown in developing countries, where rain forest might be felled to make way for the sugar crop. Green? Ridiculous.

So from this simple few points, you can see that E10 will probably cause many more environmental damage problems and CO2 emissions than it purports to solve. 

I reiterate, why are we entertaining this madness when we have left the EU and likely will walk away with a no deal situation that means we can do our own thing totally and not have to adhere to their rules?

Tokai Goldstar TST50 Springy Sound in Fiesta red review v TST50 Springy Sound from 1983

Tokai TST50 Goldstar TST50 review

Tokai TST-50 (lower) from 1983 with a 1959 Stratocaster I restored

Not much has changed since 1983 - except the decals

Back in 1983, I purchased a Tokai TST-50 Springy Sound Stratocaster, as an avid Hank Marvin fan, as it was about the closest I would get to Hank's legendary 1959 Fender Stratocaster.

My quest to find a 1959 Stratocaster took me around 16 years and came in the form of a guitar that needed restoring, now complete and pictured above. 

However, the Tokai from 1983 really was about as good as you could get back then for what I could afford. Weighing in at £199 or £250 with the case, a 1959 in Fiesta red was about £5000 if you could find one. That seems like peanuts now!

A pity I didn't back then as today it would be worth around £40-50,000. 

The TST-50 from that era featured a 1958 C shape neck, it was basically as good a replication as you could get of one of Fender's golden era guitars, made before 1966. 

Tokai were acknowledged even by pop players as great guitars and some were even used by big names over Fender, they were quite amazing. I did find the pickups were rather weak on my own 1983 original.

But, a big legal argument ensued because these guitars were too close to the Fender original and better than Fender's then current 3 bolt neck guitars which had lost their way due to cost cutting.

In the mid 80's, Tokai seemed to disappear from the Stratocaster style guitar market, they later on reappeared with a changed headstock shape Stratocaster style guitar many years later.

Cut to about 2010 and Tokai have come back with a very much nuts and bolts replica of the Stratocaster, right in the style of the Fender Stratocaster.

So I decided to try a new one, to see how they compared to the 1983 one, which I now have a pair of, both in fiesta red. 

The new TST50 Goldstar-
Little unchanged from the 1983 guitars

One good upgrade Tokai made has been the use of Gotoh vintage pickups, they are stronger than the ones on my 1983 guitar. They give a good sound and have enough power in for the sort of instrumental playing I do and for general pop music.

 

The revised decals

The neck is still the 1958  C shape which I prefer and is easy to play with the vintage wire type profile frets. Tokai install a spacer under the string tree which I personally like. These were on the 1983 guitar too, a modification I have done on a number of my other Stratocaster guitars. 

The neck on the modern Goldstar is slightly deeper than on the 1983 but the difference is negligible and only noticeable if you have an original old Tokai to hand to compare.

The Goldstar is still an easy guitar to play when set up correctly. I use it for a few different styles of music and find it works well.

If you are considering one, I would say go for one, the build quality is very good, playability good, sound is good. For a made in Japan guitar, it offers great value. 

I don't think you'll be disappointed. And being built in fairly limited numbers, they are a good investment too. You rarely get a bad Japanese made guitar and I am very pleased with the one I have.

Seiko 5 automatic watches - the design classic you should own!

The classic Seiko 5 - 50 years of great style

The great Seiko 5 in blue

As the Seiko 5 Series approaches half a century of production, this icon of watches has remained little changed. 

Some might call it retro fashion, I just think of it as a piece of great design in the vein of Bauhaus - where the beauty of the design was equal to the functionality.

For me, the Seiko 5 does both. The case looks modern and streamlined and surprisingly enough, is still available in an almost unchanged format from the originals.

Seiko 7009 - 4040 like mine

Years ago, in 1983 I purchased a 7070-4040 and I think it had to be about the best all round watch I ever owned. The finish was excellent, it kept perfect time and was reliable as anything. 

Recently, I decided to see what was around and found some old 4040's with the  blue face which I purchased. You can still find some decent used ones out there and also some of the Seiko 5's from similar model ranges. 

Modern Seiko 5 SNK with Blue face

I don't think you can go wrong here with one of these

Really for the money you can't go wrong. I personally think the blue face ones really look the nicest and those with the jubilee bracelet like the one above look best. The modern SNK version I think looks a good modern day alternative to a 4040 and they seem to enjoy good reviews.

Old school Seiko 5 6319 in blue from the early 1970's

Best of all, these don't need a battery, they are just powered by your movement! 

Check out Ebay for Seiko 5's, they are a good buy at the moment but interest is starting to pick up on them.

Going back in time - The classic Seiko 5 7009-4040 blue face 17 jewel automatic watch

Going back in time - The classic Seiko 5 automatic watch

The classic Seiko 5 7009-3040 automatic watch with blue face
virtually identical to the 4040 except the bezel is more vertical than angled

I first became aware of Seiko watches when my uncle brought one back from the United States in the 1970's. I was intrigued with this watch which had an alarm even though I was only about 6, so I hoped one day to own one. I was mechanically minded then.

Inside the Seiko 7009-4030 - the 17 jewel engine

I had to wait until 1983 to buy my own Seiko watch, going through a selection of mechanical and digital efforts from Timex, Solus, Casio from the age of about eight onwards, I purchased a mechanical watch in 1982 just after I started working but it wasn't very nice quality and what would you expect for £17 then? 

The Seiko it had to be

A walk past the local James Walker jewellers in my local high street back in 1983 presented me with a plethora of watches at a range of prices, the one I decided on was a Seiko 5 series with the dark blue dial. A 7009 - 4040.

I thought that the midnight blue colour dial really set off the stainless steel construction and it remains my favourite colour. I think from memory it cost me £90 which was at the time about 2 weeks wages and some more. 

It really was a great quality watch after my previous one, there was just no comparison. The 'made in Japan' quality was sought after around this time and was a guarantee of quality, Tokai guitars I also liked at this time had this same great build quality and finish. 

The Seiko stamped clasp on the jubilee strap

later ones have the Japan word stamped on too, some have the '5' logo.

I can remember having to have the strap altered on the blue Seiko as it was somewhat too large! It was certainly a hard wearing watch and really quite accurate, I wore it for about 15 years until I had a problem with the watch and should really have had it repaired.

The nicely finished case and strap has no sharp edges

The later straps have less pieces in them and the pieces are bigger. 

Nice modern design, even now it looks good.

This was designed in the early 1970's and hasn't aged in look.

I started a quest to replace my long lost Seiko 5 about 10 years ago, but I was not aware of the model number of mine from long ago. I was delighted then to see a modern version of my old one and bought one, but it just wasn't the same.

After much detective work, I managed to find one 7070....

And then another two! Now I have three!

Suddenly about a week ago, I found a Seiko 5 just like my old one in the dark blue, which I think was a rare colour back then I believe. 

And then found out the magic model number - 7009-4040 the designation for the blue one just like mine. Almost immediately I found two more Seiko 5's the in blue, so took a punt and have the three, as they were reasonably priced. 

Maybe buying an old Seiko 5 is a bit like turning back the clock, but I am certainly glad to have these in my collection. Although these are smaller than many current watches of the 40-45mm size - which seems the fashion and are easier to read, I do like the smaller Seiko, in fact I am wearing one now and it is keeping great time.

Another later Seiko 5 type, 21 jewels -

at the money, a good buy. No 4.

As a collectible watch, these Seiko 5's are still affordable and coming out of people's drawers after years of not being worn onto the market, so there are still some nice examples out there, also a few road worn ones too, but the prices are usually quite low, under £100 for a nice one still and £30 to 50 for quite usable ones.

But be aware, there are Seiko 5's being faked.... A lot are being done in India and are called 'Feikos' by the collectors - usually under £20 when they should be about £80 if genuinely original, some are 're-engined' old Seiko 5's and others well, just repros often using old parts. The stamping on the backs also often gives them away too, as well as the poor dial details.

Anyway, I am glad to have finally found some nice original Seiko 5s.

Brexit may kill off the European Superstate dream of the EU perhaps?

Is the end of the EU in sight?

Democracy, what democracy?

The United Kingdom's democratic vote to leave the EU in 2016 seemed to show an indication of what the British public desired - separation from the European super state.

That this vote result was almost trashed by some who decided that their point of view counted more than the citizen, showed a degree of arrogance and an affront to democracy.

When you hold an election, the winner is the winner, yet with Brexit, it seemed there were some who could not accept democracy.

Freedom, perhaps?

So the questions I have for Remainers are easy to answer, but what do they see in the EU that blinkers them to the obvious?

1. Is it common sense to throw back fish because a quota has been reached?

2. So when more fish are inadvertently landed, that the process happens again and tons of perfectly edible food are junked because of this stupid edict? what is the sense here?

3. What do you get for paying the EU around £53 million a week? A free no passport travel situation. And not much else.

4. Are nation states not grown up enough to be able to make their own laws, set their own tax rates and manage their own affairs? Or does the EU just treat them as imbeciles and take their money for the privilege of telling them what to do?

5. How much money does the EU rake in from its member states?

6. Where and how is it spent?

Maybe that's the rub... And when I put these questions to apparently brainwashed Europhiles, they have no real answers. Especially about the money.

Follow the money. 

I wonder why we aren't allowed to see audited accounts from the EU? 

When you see a label 'funded by the EU' that's because the money we pay comes back and we largely 'pay' for the funding that the EU so generously gives out.

The audacity of leaving

There was much publicity given to the fact that the UK would be punished for having the audacity and temerity to leave the EU, so, that threat does nothing for the EU. In fact it shows that there is desperation in the EU to resort to threats of future trade and negotiations in order to scare and cajole, well it didn't work and it won't.

Well, in my view, if that is their pattern of behaviour then perhaps others will adopt the same stance as the UK and leave. 

We stood alone in 1940, we traded outside of the EU before 1973 and we have been very successful too.

The problem is its about the money.

When Britain leaves the EU on January 31st, the money should stop, future demands for divorce bills of £39 billion should be ignored.

That means the UK can disregard being told where and how much to spend on foreign aid and perhaps start spending that money at home on things like dementia care, potholes in the roads (which we surely pay for in vehicle excise duty?), the NHS and many other situations in the UK.

But that's the rub.... it means that EU nations, many already in or teetering into recession will have to make up the UK's contributions. 

The EU Tsunami

Its a perfect storm potentially coming for the EU, in that the UK can pursue trade deals elsewhere it pleases, if the EU plays bully boy, the UK can walk away and embrace a potentially amazing trade deal with the US. 

If the UK stops buying EU goods, the EU is going to start collapsing and that's before the other member states decide to vote and possibly vote to leave the EU.

Look to your history books

All the previous attempts to 'unite' and make a European super state, from Julius Caesar to Adolf Hitler have all failed. The EU will too.

PTSD in the Police Service - it exists and is deadly

PTSD blights lives, it is not just a condition exclusive to the Armed Forces,

Writes Frank Whistler, who provided this piece...

'The job is what you make it...'

When I joined the Police service in the late 1980's an old Chief Inspector told me that on the first day in the job.

I had no idea what the future was going to be on that initial day, for me it was a change of career and just a means of putting something back into society and leaving it a better place at the end of things.

My service was cut short due to an injury received on duty, by the time I was retired on ill health grounds after about seven years of service, I had had about enough of the job to be honest. But it wasn't something that was just going to rest. The job came back to haunt me most days of most weeks for the next 20 years.

The career

Many people I knew in the job seemed to be able to navigate it without any real apparent stress or be subject to any really testing situations. Perhaps it was just some sort of destiny that although my time in that 'world' was relatively short, it was packed with what some might call 'adventure'. I certainly seemed to see more challenging situations than some of my colleagues.

Situations

The problem with an arena like this is that one moment you can be on foot around a town minding your own business and the next thing, an armed robbery at a bank has just gone off and you're picked up by a Patrol Car and off around the area looking for the offender.

That actually happened to me. On our drive around, I spotted a person on a railway station platform that matched the offender's description from the bank job and my colleague and I went to investigate - unarmed. 

This is no bullshitting or heroics, we went on to the platform and came around behind the person of interest and fortunately, it turned out that our 'suspect' was just an innocent football supporter on his way to a match. 

But that could easily have been a very nasty situation. (You just get in there and have to act. You don't really think about what could go wrong, that's the difference between ordinary citizens and those in the Police service. When most people go to work, their exposure to danger is often a lot less than ours.)

The incident all ended pleasantly and we just went back to what we were doing. They never did get the offender for it. But when you get too many of those occurrences building up, you need a safety valve to deal with it.

The hanged woman

I recall in our force that a policewoman was found hanged. The verdict was suicide. I didn't know her as she was from the other side of the county, but it made me wonder what drove her to this desperate action?

There had to be something that started that process. Why didn't she seek help? That was just the start of the obvious questions in my mind. At each stage of the events that led to her death, why did she not stop or get help? The answer is I don't know. I hope she has found peace.

Sadly, a young man I was at school with hanged himself aged around 27, a terrible waste. Colleagues of mine attended that one. Drugs was a major factor causing psychosis in his case, he got caught with drugs and charged and maybe that tipped him over the edge to take his own life, when his ideal of starting a new life abroad was torn to shreds by
that conviction.

Walking towards possible death

I happened to be walking back to the station one lunch time when a WPC I was with was approached by a member of Joe Public and reported a car with no number plates parked opposite a mainline railway station we were near to. 

In reality, it was off our ground and out of our jurisdiction, but we went to take a look anyway. The WPC was newly engaged, I decided that risking both our lives was stupid and she had more to risk losing than me.

So I gave her my radio and said 'There's no point in us both getting killed' and walked towards the car to investigate. Perhaps a stupid thing to do, someone could have been watching from across the tracks ready to set something off when I got near to it.

To cut a long story short, I'm still here. But for a few nasty moments there was always the possibility that it could have been a car bomb. The walk there to that car I can still recall, it was a lonely place to be. When you think about it afterwards, it really does shock you to consider that your life could have ended then.

There is a fine line between courage and stupidity. I just hope I was on the right side of it then. I thought about the situation afterwards and it did make me take a few deep breaths, then I just got on with things. 

That was just a situation that you had to act on, weighed against the possible distraction of shutting a 4 track mainline rail route which might have turned out to be a false alarm. I got away with it, it could have gone horribly wrong though.

Actions and consequences

The job can take a toll of people's relationships, even people in the job who marry people within, it doesn't always last and I've seen plenty of that happening. The WPC in the last snippet married, it didn't last long. Sadly.

What if I had been killed at that abandoned car? I guess its just the way it goes. Just another person who had died in harness. Or got lucky because I didn't. When I consider my late school friend's lost potential, what he could have done, it made me value things more. 

Because we often have to deal with things in the job that the average member of society doesn't, unless you can manage it, it can build up. These days there is counselling at the drop of a hat, 25 years ago, you just mostly got on with it and dealt with it as best you could.

Some did succumb to stress or alcohol, or gambling for example, but these last items are displacement mechanisms to push away the real cause of the problems. Realising and acting to do something about a recognised problem is a start.

Recognising the problem is the key. Not being able to see the wood for the trees is a big problem, some people can't see they have a problem. That's a dangerous situation starting to form.

Combat stress

The world has become more violent without a doubt since my time in the job, the root cause of most crime back then 25 years ago was to feed drugs habits and not much seems to have changed. DVD players, camcorders, alloy wheels, car stereo systems were the hot crime trends. Just to feed the habit, enough to buy a fix.

It was often the same old faces, doing the same old crimes, same old usually small price for the fenced goods to pay for a drug hit. 

I heard about combat stress and PTSD in respect of a program I saw about the Vietnam war and realised that some of what the American soldiers reported experiencing were things I could understand. 

To me, leaving the job when I was retired on ill health was sudden and final. Although I did continue to work occasionally with some colleagues on unfinished business, I ceased that after about three years, making a break and moving to a different country to make a new life. 

It was about then you'd start more to experience more night dreams where you'd be in a Police situation but you'd either be with no one you knew but they knew you or you'd be somewhere you knew. It was very inconsistent. But in those dreams you always felt a bit of an outsider and that the reason for being in this 'experience' was unfinished business. 

I'd had those dreams within the time in the job, but I suppose they were some sort of occupational hazard and probably discounted as being unusual because of the environment I was in.

But how to deal with it? Otherwise I had a pretty normal 9-5 type existence of sorts.

At the end of the day

Well, what now? How do I fix this? Will it get me? - The really big question was why was I continuing to have these dreams? It was a line in that film - 'Eight years later, they're still fighting the Vietnam war.' A way was needed of putting the old life 'to bed.' 

I worked out that the unfinished business was at the root of all this, but I realised that all I had done was enough in the job, I had had my experience in that arena and it was time to move on to do other things.

That I did professionally, but still these things plagued me. One day I embarked on a writing project which I thought about basing on my professional experience and wrote a fictional book about a fictional Police Force.

Maybe who knows, that the purpose of my service was for this end as part of some great plan? I had started writing novels after I left the job, whilst I looked for something else to do, maybe I was slowly dealing with the unfinished business through that. 

About twenty books later I started on the massive tome, it came to about 510 pages of A4 in all. There was the right mix of how life was then, how people are and a dollop of farce, because I saw plenty of that. Mindful of not giving away 'trade secrets' as such, I based my book on knowledge in the public domain and fictionalised events.

Some characters I based on people I knew or worked with, some on actors I thought could play the roles if it was filmed. The concept was to write a good book, but at the same time it did largely solve my situation. 

The unfinished business was now mostly finished, to the extent that the experiences are now just rare experiences. I was lucky, some can never shake off the unfinished business. Sometimes it winds up killing them. 

It all seems a long time ago. It was.

Mind how you go....

Just before I do, there is another compounding problem, the Police service is run along military type lines and it is easy to become institutionalised in the lower ranks - 

like those in the military also find after they leave, they have to think for them selves, self-start and just 'do things'. 

After years of following orders, this disconnect when added to the major disconnection can add to the strains of leaving 'the job' and act as an additional set of factors in 'tipping someone over.'