Sarum In Luxembourg

Why (to take last things first) Luxembourg? Because Pam'n'Alan have notched up (between them) half a century of living in Luxembourg. Pam came here in 1973, just after the UK joined the then European Economic Community; Alan arrived in 1982, fleeing the headsman's axe in the shape of a redundancy notice from ICL. Circumstances (oh, all right then, the local AODS) brought them together in 1986; the long expected explosion due to the resulting critical mass has still not happened. Yet. (that's a joke, dear, I said a JOKE <runs away very fast>).

And why Sarum? The short answer is "that's the name of our house". But it's called that because of the many memorable experiences we have had singing in voluntary choirs in Salisbury Cathedral over the years. The cathedral has a very special place in our affections. A (rather loose) connection is that Pamela used to work in the Beeb's religious broadcasting department for Stewart Cross, who later became the Bishop of Blackburn. He wrote a hymn, "Father, Lord of all creation" to the tune "Abbot's Leigh", which was written by Cyril Taylor, sometime precentor of Salisbury Cathedral, who was also at one time deputy head of the Beeb's religious broadcasting department...

About ourselves

After a brief and inglorious career as a professional horn-player, Alan re-invented himself as a computer programmer, working for ICL, where he spent ten years programming 1900- and 2900-series computers. After moving to Luxembourg in 1982 to work for Systran Instutut GmbH, he took a post with the European Parliament in 1984. He became the (nearly) onlie begetter and chief dogsbody of the Parliament's internal translation management system, known as Gepro (from Système de Gestion de la Production). The application server and all of the supporting logic in the latest version is written in Perl, which is, in his opinion, one of the best, if not the best, programming language in the world. This was not the view of the strongly Micro$oft-oriented Direction de l'Informatique et Télécommunications, but as Alan was there first (Gepro started in 1985, the DIT emerged from the primaeval slime was constituted after a complicated call for tender in 1990), he has had the edge for the last twenty years. He's trying very hard to embrace PHP, but Perl still has the edge... It is (obviously) not possible to link to the Parliament's internal sites, but a suitably emended copy of the Gepro explanatory page is here. The latest version of the EP's translation management software is still being developed, but Alan took early retirement before the new system was rolled out. He thought the powers that be would negotiate over his preferred leaving date, but no, that didn't happen. So he is looking forward to some consultancy work if the existing system has to run beyond the end of 2006. On the whole, he'd rather that didn't happen, as he wants to recover, as far as possible, the skills he had as a professional musician thirty and more years ago. The only way is up...

Pamela is "just a housewife" with all the strengths and talents implied. And for fifteen years she also ran a successful one-woman secretarial agency, which paid for one of the cars, and all of the computing and other office equipment. She ceased trading because, when tribes of Huns, Goths and Vandals, thinly disguised as grandchildren, appeared in the next village, she found that she was simply working to pay the accountant's fees.  

The family page is here

The children also have their own site here

Links:

www.rscm.com	We owe the Royal School of Church Music a great deal, particularly for providing the opportunity of singing in Salisbury Cathedral and for providing the tuition needed to get the best out of our voices.
www.rscm-nw-europe.net	Our chaplaincy in Luxembourg is part of the archdeaconry of northwest Europe in the diocese of Gibraltar in Europe. The various choirs come together at least once a year for a knees-up Choir Festival which is usually directed by a prominent church musician from the UK. The 2003 festival, for example, was directed by Simon Lole, Organist of Salisbury Cathedral.
www.hiddenhurt.co.uk	This is Pam's daughter's website, which supports victims of domestic violence. She has 'been there, done that' (or, rather, 'had that done to her') and this is her contribution to the effort to rid the world of this evil. Not easy reading, but, I think, necessary.