Patrick Jonathan Beckett

Since all web pages are designed by people who want to tell the world something about themselves, this is my chance.

I am a forty-something software engineer living in Engl... Wales! I live with my wife, Andrea, who is a wonderful and loving girl (and, no, she is not watching me type this). The photo below is of us celebrating our engagement, taken six year ago.

I love all things science Fiction, SF, Sci-Fi, call it what you will, it is still the best way to expand your imagination beyond the mundane world we see around us.

Andrea and I met when she joined a the local Star Trek Fan Club I was helping to run. When an opening appeared on the committee, I encouraged the secretary to contact her, and the post was filled. I was drawn to her almost at once, and eventually Andrea was to me. Ten months later, during a holiday, I proposed, and Andrea accepted. Three years to the day I asked Andrea out, we were married in Andrea's home town.

Cats

In 2002 a stray cat found it's way into Andrea's mothers care. She could not keep him, so we took him on. Jack, as we called him, had been abandoned when his original owners moved away without him.

My Career

My career is the in the field of Computer Controlled Process Control Engineering, where I do a lot of work in the water industry, and animal feed production.

I work for a firm called Merlin Systems, part of the Lloyd Morris element of the CEMA Group. I am their webmaster. My position, Senior Systems Engineer, means that I get to do the dirty jobs, learning the new languages, PLC's etc.

In addition to providing Merlin Systems and also Lloyd Morris Electrical with a web site, I have written a couple more, this one, one for the local branch of the British Computer Society, and one for my mother, Terri Beckett.

The Wedding

Well, the big day has been and gone. The end of our lives as single people and the formation of a new family. Sounds corny, doesn't it? Perhaps so, but marriage can be.

We would like to thank everyone who came to our wedding.

Despite threats from our friends, we managed to have wedding without a Star Trek uniform in sight! While we did not want Star Trek, or Sci-Fi to dominate the wedding, we had to acknowledge the fact that Sci-Fi did bring us together. To this end, I wore a small UFP symbol and Andrea had a small Bajornan pin in her bouquet.

The church was very understanding, and the vicar was a fellow fan, so we choose the main theme of Deep Space Nine instead of the Wedding March. We gave a copy of the sheet music to the organist, who said it would be alright, as it was not pre-recorded music. It sounded wonderful on the day

The Offspring

On a very hot day in July 2006, Andrea gave birth to a boy, whom we named Ian Marcus.

Here is a gallery of Ian's pictures