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The author, Norman William Palmer (better known as ‘Bill’, although acquiring numerous sobriquets over his seventy- plus years), takes you through his compelling, yet highly intimate and personal, somewhat nomadic life’s journey, from his relatively poor, low working- class background, his one year service as a volunteer in East Africa, that ignited a passion for travel, his appointment to the top post in a Local Authority Youth and Community Service and his numerous encounters with ‘Royalty .
Bill’s brutal realisation at the age of 50 that he had spent all those years in a state of 'denial’ about his true sexuality and the catastrophic impact of his marital break-up, leading to him relinquishing a career he loved as a result of the devastating consequences of him ‘coming out ’ as a gay man.
His struggles to re-build his life that, following a brief period in the retail trade, ultimately led to him being able to fulfil his travel ambitions when joining one of the world’s leading holiday companies Saga Holidays, as a self-employed Tour Manager over a 17 year association, giving him the unique opportunity to visit over 60 countries. Bill’s decision to re-locate to Hong Kong for nearly two decades to pursue initially the love of his life, only to end dramatically with a life-threatening disease.
A life story reflecting the many pronounced social changes over this period punctuated with moments of high drama, yet combined with highly amusing anecdotes. Leading Bill eventually to what he describes as his ‘twilight zone’ retirement years back in England, coming to terms with seismic cultural changes and the current challenges of a wide-world pandemic, Coronavirus.
In a most forthright and deeply honest way, Bill acknowledges his many weaknesses, together with his strongly expressed views over a rollercoaster life with its share of ups and downs, triumphs and disappointments, periods blighted by crippling depression, yet always endeavouring to maintain a good sense of humour throughout his many trials and tribulations and in the end retaining an optimistic half- full rather than half- empty outlook on life.
