"This is Your Ticket to Germany".

That was the title of the job advert in Computing, an IT trade weekly, in autumn 1980.

I was living in a 13th floor council flat in Canning Town, in the East End of London, and working as a computer programmer in Harlow, Essex. That was where I was, on my journey from being born and growing up in Leeds, via university in Manchester. My girlfriend at the time wanted me to get a job abroad so that she could teach English as a Foreign Language. So I applied.

An open airline ticket arrived by return of post, with a covering letter saying to fill in a date and come for an interview in Hamburg. I found that rather classy, I still do, so I did just that. They offered me the job on the spot, at double my current pay, took me out with another applicant to a restaurant on the Reeperbahn, where the Beatles learned their trade, and put me up in a hotel so that I could have a look around the city on my own, the next day.

I immediately knew that I had found my home. Hamburg is a beautiful place, but there are lots of beautiful places, aren’t there? It must just have been right for me at that moment. I must have been looking for it, somehow. When they arise, wherever they come from, you have to recognise such moments, and grab them. I could say that applying for that job was the best thing I ever did, but I suppose I just mean that it was the most significant thing I have ever done. I’ve never looked back, and it determined who I have become. Leeds was my springboard, and remains part of me, but it set me up and then let me go, which is as it should be.

More than forty years later, after more than a few twists and turns, which I can’t relate here, I am still in Germany, although not Hamburg, retired, naturalised, happily married, with two children, who were born and grew-up here, and I am very thankful for the life which this country has given me. These days I can even stream Leeds United matches.