Welcome To My Information page

Origins - England:
My name is David Smithdale and I was born in Norwich, Norfolk, England, back in the dreamtime of 1934, during the reign of King George the V. My education was greatly interrupted by WWII and attended several schools from Bracondale Grammar to a small village school of one room at Ranworth. My father was a fen drainage engineer, part of a family engineering business of Thomas Smithdale & Sons of Acle.
Occupations:
At the age of 15, I ran away from home to join the Navy, but was too young and obtained a temporary job at Jewson's Timber Yard in Gt Yarmouth. In May 1950 I was accepted and joined the Royal Navy, attending HMS Ganges training establishment at Shotley in Suffolk, from there I qualified as a Radio Telegraphist and joined my first ship, HMS Loch Killisport in 1952, I later served on the HMS Triumph, HMS Neptune and HMS Hardy. The latter having an ignominious end by being sunk as a target ship in 1971. I also had the distinction of being shipwrecked on Chesil Beach,near Portland, whilst serving on the MFV1089, a fishery protection vessel. I also served on several communications bases in the Persian Gulf, Egypt and Cyprus.
Following the death of my father in 1956, I left the Navy and joined the Norfolk County Police and served at North Walsham, Caister-on-Sea, Hunstanton, Sandringham and King's Lynn, finally at Snettisham, when I left the force and emigrated with my wife and three children to Western Australia in 1968. I had also gained an amateur radio licence G3UJS in 1964.
Western Australia
In Australia, I obtained employement with the Whitfords Broadcasting Company at their Northam Transmitter, 60 miles NE of Perth, as a radio technician, it was a bumpy start, as a nearby town, Meckering, was devastated by a 6.8 earthquake in October 68. In 1970 I returned to sea as a radio officer on the northwest oil rigs, with the Burmah Oil Company and spent 7 years on the rigs and shore installations. During this period my first marriage ended.
I returned to Perth and worked as a marine radio technician, covering many aspects of the industry from simple echo sounders to complex sonar equipment, radars, auto pilots and HF radio equipment on local fishing boats and NW prawn trawlers. I extended my field further into land and mobile communications and also ran my own communications business. Later I became service manager of a communications company. Later with Global Communications I was responsible for designing and setting up communications equipment for Channel 9 TV, to cover the America's Cup defence at Fremantle. With Global, I also took on responsibility for repair of in-house paging systems for several Perth Hotels and Hospitals until 1989, when medical problems terminated my ability to work. (See My Story ) In the mid 70's I remarried and have two sons from that union, one of whom still lives at home with me. (The 2nd marriage ended in 1998). I have been unable to participate in the workforce since 1991, when I was placed on disability pension, but I still keep myself fully occupied with many varied hobbies, some of which are contained amongst these pages.
Family I have five sons all living in Australia, 3 grand-daughters and 1 grandson, 4 of my sons live here in Western Australia, one a retired Lt Cdr ex RAN, From my second marriage, Paul is in his final year for his BSc in Advanced Software Development, whilst the youngest son, who is on disability pension lives at home with me.
I have two sisters who are married with families, living in England and we maintain close contact via the internet and Snail mail.
Following recent research into my family tree, I have also found new relatives I never knew existed in the UK, directly related from my father's brothers. One of these is helping me in my research into the Smithdale family whom I have traced back to the 1700's - Unfortunately they had the propensity to name many sons with the name Thomas and this is causing quite some confusion and which Thomas is which, especially when one Thomas had two sons also named Thomas.
One of my cousins left for the USA after WWII and I lost track of her family. (28/09/06 - My cousin Betty, located in the US after 60 years! via her daughter-in-law :)
Any information no matter how trivial is always appreciated in our search to complete the family tree.