So long, and thanks for all the fish

My final blog, ever!

Monday, 28 April 2025

I’ve taken the title of this blog from the fourth book of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy trilogy (which actually has six books) written by Douglas Adams. It originally came from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy where dolphins used the phrase as they left Earth just before it was destroyed. People use it as a way of saying goodbye and acknowledging that their previous experience had been positive.

I am retiring at the end of this month, and this is my final blog. And, I have rather enjoyed myself.

I started my working life as a science and maths teacher, and I was instrumental in introducing IT into the secondary school that I taught in. My head of department and myself did a training course on how to teach IT to the young people at school. While we were training, I was offered the chance to go into industry to see what it was like in order to tell the youngsters about it. I spent three weeks at an IT bureau called Scicon. They offered me a job!

Scicon had an association with BP. It had Univac computers originally, and I was working as an operator. I was paid more than I had been as a teacher, and I didn’t spend every evening marking books, and every holiday planning for next term. The arrival of an IBM mainframe caused quite a stir. It didn’t work in the same way as the Univac machines. I learned how to use it and to write JCL. And I became the one-man support desk for the IBM machines (they soon got a newer second one). The downside was that I was on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Combining my teaching experience with my mainframe experience seemed an obvious next step. I got a job as a lecturer with a company called Protocol, which offered operator training for MVS, VM, and VSE sites. It involved travelling all over the UK and abroad (Europe and the Middle East). I was soon a senior lecturer and writing the training courses that I was delivering. I had young children by that time, and coming home at a sensible time in the evening seemed preferable, so I left and joined Xephon.

Xephon was a much more professional organization, with much higher standards. It offered seminars and publications. I found myself editing their new idea of Update journals, containing code written by mainframers for mainframers. It was the days before the Internet and it was a great way to share information. I also produced some surveys, such as The Help Desk in Action, and I chaired some of the webinars. Over time, I edited most of the Update journals for at least part of their lifespan. I also wrote three books, two on VM and one about automated systems operations.

Xephon was sold, and I set up iTech-Ed Ltd in 2004. I continued producing and editing the Update journals, which were then published by US-based Software Diversified Services (SDS). I also did some other work. At the end of 2007, the Update journals were stopped. By then, people were sharing code on the Internet and so sales, which has peaked in the 1990s, were much diminished. I started working on the Arcati Mainframe Yearbook, and I also launched the Virtual IMS user group at the end of that year. By the time I sold those assets to Planet Mainframe, there was also a Virtual CICS user group and a Virtual Db2 user group. I became an IBM Champion in 2009, and I am still a champion in 2025. After attending the Guide Share Europe (GSE) UK regional conference for many years, I started speaking at it in 2021. Last year, I spoke about How to create Artificial Generalized Intelligence.

In 2008 I started training as a solution-focused hypnotherapist, and I’ve helped people using hypnotherapy since 2009. I also trained as a hypnotherapy supervisor in 2012. At the start of 2012 I joined the executive of the AfSFH (association for solution-focused hypnotherapy). I completed a number of other relevant training courses. I also gave a number of CPDs (continuous professional development) training courses. In 2022 I became a Fellow of the AfSFH, one of the first four people to receive that distinction. I wrote 12 books, and any number of articles and blogs. In 2021, I started the Solutions podcasts with Cathy Eland, and a book containing four years’ worth of scripts is now available.

Worryingly, the school I taught at closed not long after I left. Scicon closed after I left. Protocol grew hugely in terms of staff numbers after I left and then collapsed. Xephon closed while I was still there. And now, my company, iTech-Ed Ltd is closing.

I have written well over a thousand blogs and articles over the years – not all of them published here. I’ve written for Planet Mainframe and TechChannel, and other sites. And I’ve written articles that have been published under other people’s names too.

In terms of legacy, the Arcati Mainframe Yearbook (now called the Arcati Mainframe Navigator) and the three user groups are still going under the Planet Mainframe banner. Some of the CPDs I created are now owned by other organizations and can continue being delivered. My books are available for people to buy. And the people I helped with solution-focused hypnotherapy are hopefully still benefitting from it.

Thank you to everyone who has helped and supported me through the different stages of my working life. I do have plans for my retirement, although a lot of my time will be spent with grandchildren – which is great.

If you need anything written, contact Trevor Eddolls at iTech-Ed.
Telephone number and street address are shown here.