Dave Smith

About Dave Smith

Dave trained as a Statistician at UCL (London) and began his career in Operational Research in the UK Civil Service. After working for the Ministry of Defence for about 20 years (during which he also had a short attachment to the Civil Service Department and the Treasury) he moved to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food initially as the Fisheries Scientific Adviser and, later, as the Risk Management Coordinator. (MAFF was later merged with other Departments to become the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA), He started Dave’s Disk Doctor Service in his spare time while working in London for MAFF because he found he had the ability to help people with computer disk problems, but because he did not need the extra income he decided that all profits should go to various charities. Dave took early retirement in 1995 when the increasing bureaucracy under the Thatcher regime finally destroyed the residual interest that he had in this work and finding that his main satisfaction was now from computer data salvage.

Dave & his wife, Sue, who attends the local Anglican/Methodist church, have two sons, Mark & Simon and two grandsons, James & Matthew. Dave & Sue have enjoyed holidays on canal narrow boats and years ago had a share in a 6-berth narrow boat called "Still Waters". Dave & Sue are also interested in genealogy. Sue is researching her maiden name "Cluett" and now has her own web site for that name at www.cluett.org.uk. Sue & Dave enjoy Latin & Ballroom dancing, Sequence dancing and Line Dancing - they are members of Paddock Wood U3A and help run the Interest Groups in these two areas.

Dave collected hobbies, but never had enough time to continue to practice them all. Life drawing, playing the clarinet and wood carving/turning were several such that have long since fallen by the wayside. Over the years he has done many courses in traditional crafts simply to appreciate the skill involved in these that can be seen in our historic houses and churches, the most recent of which were enamelling and fused glass work. Dave became interested in Egyptology and pursued a number of courses in the subject. This led him to conduct some original research on Solar Eclipses in the New Kingdom – an almost completely un-researched topic until then. After over 10 years unsuccessfully trying to get this work published in the main Egyptology Journals (due to the “not invented here” syndrome) it finally appeared on-line on the web site Egyptological.com (sadly no longer in existence) where it was published in two parts in the August and October issues of their journal in 2012. You can read copies of these two articles by clicking on Solar Eclipse Events in the New Kingdom – Part 1: Texts and Funerary Material and Solar Eclipse Events in the New Kingdom - Part 2: Astronomical Analysis

Currently Dave enjoys walking and is a Countryside Access Volunteer for KCC. Last year he started helping the local Library to provide a Home Library Service for those people unable to collect their own books. His own Family History research, aided a few years ago by taking a DNA test, has recently yielded surprising results when he discovered that his hitherto unknown maternal grandfather was actually a Jewish actor who later lived in the USA. Dave also enjoys photography & microscopy, particularly pond life. He sometimes takes photos through the microscope and also uses a conventional camera with a macro lens on a rail to achieve focus stacking for a greater depth of field. His conventional photography in the last year or two has included several photoshoots of Harvest Mice, water drops and soap bubbles.

Dave is a Quaker. The Quaker movement arose in the mid-17th century in England. Its followers called themselves "Friends of Truth, as they thought of themselves as friends of Jesus (John 15:15). In time they came to be known simply as "Friends". The name "Quaker" was a nickname used by others as it was said at the time that they trembled or quaked with religious zeal. Friends have since adopted the term and today the words "Friend" and "Quaker" have the same meaning. The formal title of the Quaker movement is now "The Religious Society of Friends (Quakers)". You can find out more about Quakers on the World Quaker Web Site at www.quaker.org or the British Quaker Web Site.

You can send an e-mail to Dave by clicking here but please note that Dave no longer undertakes disk salvages, data transfers or gives advice on computer-related problems, regarding himself as now "out-of-date" on such matters! You can send an e-mail to Sue via her web site or by clicking here

You can also share in some of Sue & Dave's hobbies:

Last revised: January 2024