Cast Fate To The Wind

Brian Downes

Description

Cast Fate to the Wind is an autobiography that follows a child from a dysfunctional background to adulthood, achieving many dreams and experiences of karma along the way. The path is random and, to no small extent, predetermined if you are prepared to listen to your sensitivities and those who have the gift of spiritual foresight.The psychic messages documented within are explanations, which may assist anyone with their quest for the meaning of their life, and develop a positive feeling on a path to destiny. It is a journey over 70 years with life experiences that directly involve forewarnings of Lockerbie and Alexander Kielland, working with the world's greatest gambler on UK racecourses, and helping to build the largest privately-owned global inspection company.If you practice karma throughout your life, rewards will address the balance to your benefit. Your family is your most precious asset and will never devalue. Hopefully, this book will encourage anyone from a similar background to find contentment and success with their lives as well.If you come to a fork in the road, take it!

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie
• Memoir

Informations

• Publié par: Brown Dog Books
• Date de parution: 31 mars 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781839522772
• Langue: English

Extrait

First published 2021
Copyright © Brian Downes 2021
The right of Brian Downes to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the copyright holder.
Published under licence by Brown Dog Books and The Self-Publishing Partnership, 7 Green Park Station, Bath BA1 1JB
www.selfpublishingpartnership.co.uk

ISBN paperback book: 978-1-83952-276-5
ISBN hardback book: 978-1-83952-292-5
ISBN e-book: 978-1-83952-277-2
Cover design by Kevin Rylands
Internal design by Andrew Easton
Printed and bound in the UK
This book is printed on FSC certified paper
The book is for
Elaine and Daniel, Angela, Ella, Harry and Sophie, Ian, Lily-Rose, and Isabelle. Plus, anyone else who has been kind enough to take an interest in me over the years.
Introduction to the Author and Narrator
I have enjoyed an unusually varied life but realise that unless you have travelled in the media spotlight with some notoriety, the contents of an autobiography will be of little interest to most people.
I have experienced many things in my life and have obtained a final realisation of my existence. With objective evidence to support my spiritualism, this may attract some readers to share my assumptions and indeed tread the path of Karma, as I have done.
My family is my most treasured possession and fills me with contentment that is immeasurable. I came from a dysfunctional background, and hopefully it may give hope to any young person that there is a way to happiness for everyone. I will try to explain why people hurt you at times, when it is not their intention to do so, and how these setbacks work to set you on a better path in life.
I have had many psychic experiences during my time, being shown the pattern of my life at an early age, seeing tragedies to come, avoiding fatal accidents, and forewarned of such disasters as the Alexander Kielland and Lockerbie air crash.
The wind has blown my career; I had the chance to work with MI6, be a mercenary in Nigeria, run large companies or be David Bowie’s Road Manager. I did run successful businesses, advised the world’s greatest gambler, was consultant to blue-chip companies, and most importantly of all, a dedicated Dad. The plan view is entirely different from the front elevation of the same object!!
So, without further ado, I proudly present the plan view of my life.
Contents
Pre-1952 Family background
1952 to 1955 Toddler at Max Road, Quinton
1955 to 1959 Knighton, Radnorshire
1959 to 1966 Halesowen
1966 to 1971 Stewart and Lloyds
1971 to 1973 The world is my oyster
1973 to 1976 The rise of Ultratest
1976 to 1980 The sale of Ultratest
1980 to 1984 Ultratest reprise
1980 to 1989 Freedom with a big ‘F’
1990 to 1999 Changes are coming
2000 to 2009 A proper job and consultancy
2010 to date Still finding Karma at 70
2020+ Karma and the meaning of Brian’s life
Pre-1952 Family background
The Downes family originate from Shropshire, Aston Munslow to be precise, and since circa 1500 have been planting spuds and tending pigs for other wealthier people. We have not risen to any level in society but probably have a good gene pool through eating nutritious food over the centuries, to enable most Downes to reach 80 years and beyond. Paternal Grandad Downes was a lovely gentle chap, and my sister Mary once said I was like him, and I thought that a most generous compliment. I will recall my memories of him later. Grannie Downes was a tiny and most unpleasant lady, who frightened everyone. Her defence lawyer would claim she had to be that strong to raise seven children in poverty without losing one.
My father, George, was the eldest and had it rough. He covered most chores, like milking the goat in the morning to get nutrition for his ailing brother Charlie, only for the goat to kick the bucket over. He would add water to avoid trouble, and Grannie would complain about the goat producing pale milk. He left home at the age of twelve to work on a farm and sent money home; the only contact he received was a Christmas card once a year. Rehired every May Day if fit, it is understandable that George was incapable of showing any affection and wanted me to have a similarly hard existence. Much later in life, I discovered I suffered from Asperger’s Syndrome so that probably doubled the bad for me when he dished the discipline out. ‘Too soft for this world,’ he would say to me. I guess Dad thought it was good preparation for a harsh world that probably did not exist anymore. One thing is for sure; he gave both me and my sister an incredible survival instinct, plus the will to grind it out when others around me had long since gone home.
After many years of working on farms, Dad joined the Royal Air Force at the outbreak of the War in 1939. Initial responsibilities included tending a barrage balloon, located in Streetly, north of Birmingham.
My mother Winifred Rees’s ancestors hailed from Birmingham and Yorkshire. My maternal Grandad, John Walter Rees, another hard character, was a drayman in Birmingham when he met Grannie Cathleen Mary Bond. They started raising a family like rabbits, until he left his beer barrels, horse, cart, and takings, with a publican in Bull Street. He fled with the barmaid. The family took him back and edited any photographs that included the lady with scissors, the portion containing the tart destroyed, and the half containing Walter collated proudly in the family album. In 1916 he went off with the Warwickshire Regiment and saw action at the Somme and in Italy. He returned to continue rearing offspring until he was sent to France again in June 1918 with the Gloucestershire Regiment 18th Service. I do not think there was enough left of the Warwickshire regiment to form a battalion.
His luck ran out on the morning of 18 September 1918, when shot in the stomach and subsequently dying of his wounds the following day in a German Field hospital No 19, situated inside Seclin Notre Dame infirmary. I know to within 30 yards where he fell, from obtaining regimental documentation. It was the last action his ‘A’ company saw in the war, so if he had survived that morning, he would have made it home. Many months passed before John Walter’s death confirmation, and it must have been horrendous for a young widow living on a war pension. Grannie Rees carried the letter from the Army chaplain until her death; I have seen a well-worn copy. Her family Bond was prosperous and owned several businesses in Birmingham.
The father, Cyrus Bond, was very entrepreneurial, but apart from a few presents at Christmas, they received little financial support; my sister believes that I got my business acumen from Cyrus. I researched and visited John Walter’s grave in 2018, and I will document this experience later in the book.
Winifred had two surviving elder sisters and two younger brothers. The two elder sisters, known as the naughty girls, had fun, but Mum was the one who became pregnant out of wedlock and had a son, David, in 1936. A terrible sin of dishonour in those days, but David became a young gentleman as the family began bringing wages into one household, and things became more comfortable for them. Mum developed many hang-ups in life, one of which was a lack of self-confidence. The elder sisters were matriarchal figures who were dominant, they would not have encouraged her confidence, and she became their Cinderella.
Fate then decided to bring George and Winifred together. George, as he told me later, bought two tickets for a cinema in Birmingham and waited in New Street for a likely lady. The old army trick worked, as Mum and Grannie Rees came innocently into view. George explained that his friend had let him down, and it seemed a shame to waste the tickets, would mother like to join him. Grannie approved, and the association started. They fell in love and decided on a long-term relationship. Sadly, George’s barrage balloon lost gas one late evening when distracted, the cable took off many chimneys in the area, and in the morning, things were not the best for George, then assigned to a squadron in North Africa. Leaving Liverpool in November 1941, the Empress of Asia dropped George off at Cape Town in South Africa, then sailed on to Bombay and Singapore, before being sunk by Japanese bombers.
Long-distance correspondence continued as George served four years, ending up in Italy.
He told me he flew up to Cairo from Cape Town with six Hurricane pilots onboard a Dakota in such turbulence the pilots were airsick; it transpired that every one of the young pilots died within a few weeks. The tank-busting cannons fitted to the Hurricanes were blowing the wings off. I do recall a cenotaph parade in Knighton around 1955, not long after the war, and everyone wore their medals and uniforms except Dad. On completion of the ceremony, the Knighton silver band played the last post. To Mom’s annoyance, he said, ’That’s bullshit, it was not like that at all. If you got killed, they threw you in a ditch, covered you with a few spades of sand, said a few words and cleared off.’
On his return in 1944 the airborne division tried to recruit him as a paratrooper. He had a quarter to three feet and made sure he could not stand on his toes, so failed the medical. He said he had done four years and that was enough. On a walk at Halesowen, we found a 303 bullet, the type used in the war, and he threw it miles and said with bitterness, ‘That should not be around here.’ He only spoke of humorous experiences, such as the time when he and his colleague Alby Ball heard aircraft from their bomb shelter. Alby bet Dad they were Hurricanes and left the hut, only for Alby to hastil