Johnny Jones

I live with my wife Ann in Edinburgh, Scotland, where we were both born, around the 1930’s – I cannot believe it is nearly 100 years ago!

Although, always an avid reader my busy full time career left little time for writing – apart from professional reports etc. It was not until I was well into my seventies, before I had the time, therefore started to write stories. Now mid-way through my 9th decade, I finally completed writing the fictional series, the Zander Trilogy.

I am a retired chartered civil and structural engineer, a fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers and a former council member within the Edinburgh branch.

During my professional career, while employed by two of the world’s most prestigious civil engineering consultants, I was engaged in design works for the Forth Road and Erskine bridges, Faslane, Coulport and Rosyth naval bases and numerous infrastructure and hydro-electric works, both here and overseas. For a number of years I acted as Consultant to the Newtongrange Mining Museum.

Later I founded my own Consultancy (a move I did not regret for a moment) providing clients with advice on major civil engineering works, designing structures and infrastructure networks throughout the U.K. and acted as engineering advisor to the Edinburgh Festival Society.

I am a former British International decathlete and played rugby, basketball and squash to a reasonably high standard. I represented both Scotland and Gt.Britain & N. Ireland in the Decathlon, and achieved the No 1 ranking in the U.K. In August 1965;  my score ranked me 4th in the Commonwealth and 4th on the U.K. all-time list. I was known as Jack Jones during these athletic years.

1974 Edinburgh Commonwealth Games – Assistant Team Manager for Scotland.

I have finally retired from playing golf at the Bruntsfield Links Golfing Society – the 4th oldest club in the world and although age has deprived me of playing partners, I still go along to Edinburgh Sports Club – Scotland’s principal rackets club and home to Padel Tennis. In 1982, I was elected to the Chair of their board of directors; it feels like yesterday when I would sprint around the squash courts, alas no more!

Together Ann and I have visited in excess of 80 different countries around the world and have stood at the sites of 6 of the 7 Wonders of the Ancient World, on top of which we have enjoyed seeing many of the places we read about in our schoolbooks . I have even ‘sprinted’, in the original Olympic Stadium in Athens, Greece.

A few notable points from my life that spring to mind;

  • Suffered my first ‘attack’ of stage fright singing at a charity concert before my 4th birthday, 1937.
  • Lived through the shock of the ‘friendly’ fire from a Spitfire in 1939 – I have the original bullet!
  • Walked up the suspension cables on the Forth Road Bridge.
  • Was a vocal soloist in a production during the first Edinburgh Festival of Music and Drama, in 1947.
  • Suffered the cold horror of the Water of Leith on two separate occasions, to pull people out of the raging floodwaters.

To get a ‘feel’ for the contents of this website, have a look at the Posts in the right hand margin. Or you can hover your mouse over the Blog Posts at the top of the screen, and a drop down menu will appear. There are snippets from my 3 published paperbacks following Zander and his crew aboard the Puffer and recently his exploits on the golf course.

The Dean Bridge – our ‘bridge of sighs’ – one of my published historical articles.

More information on the Dean Bridge, which you can read here

24 thoughts on “Johnny Jones”

    1. You are very welcome, Johnny.

      Please be informed that you might need to use a desktop or laptop computer with a large screen to view the rich multimedia contents available for heightening your multisensory enjoyment at my blog, which could be too powerful and feature-rich for iPad, iPhone, tablet or other portable devices to handle properly or adequately.

      In addition, since my blog contains advanced styling and multimedia components plus animations, it is highly recommended to read my posts and pages directly in my blog so that you will be able to see and experience all of the refined and glorious details. Hence, it is prudent to refrain from viewing my blog in the WordPress Reader, which tends to ignore or strip away some styling and formatting components, and also fails to display animations, all of which are aplenty in my posts and pages, which will look very different and even improper or amiss in the WordPress Reader.

      May you have a wonderful weekend. Happy March to you soon!

      Liked by 1 person

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  6. Hello Johnny, it is a pleasure to meet you. I enjoyed reading your impressive bio. For the past thirty three years, I have been working with engineers of different disciplines and contracting officers that were responsible for overseeing federal contracts for the Department of Defense and Department of Veterans Health Administration. The team that I support now is amazing. Lord willing, I plan to be with them until I retire in three years. My husband and I would love to travel like you and your wife; awesome. We would love to visit Scotland. Remain safe…

    Liked by 1 person

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  7. È un onore per me conoscerti e ti ringrazio tanto per avermi riportato con i tuoi like alle mie prime pubblicazioni a rileggere i commenti di persone che so non esserci più perché la vita è un gran casino.

    A presto risentirci importante per me era ringraziarti.

    Shera

    Liked by 2 people

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  9. It is a pleasure to meet you, Johnny , and I thank you for your follow.
    Your introduction of yourself is fascinating. You have indeed fitted in much
    in your life
    To top it you and Ann have visited 80 countries. As I love travel I can imagine some of the feelings when you beheld the wonders.

    Miriam

    Liked by 3 people

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