About Me...
Well I don't want to waffle on too much, so I'll try and keep it short and sweet, well as short and sweet as a life story can be!
I 'm a Midland lad, born in Stafford on January 4th 1984. Aged four I moved with my family to Stratford-upon-Avon where I lived until moving to nearby Warwick in 2007 (other than my time living in Coventry whilst at University).
I'm the middle child of my family, son of parents Mike & Jayne Simkiss, and brother of my two siblings, elder brother Christopher and younger sister Victoria. I'm a committed man, having been in a relationship with my fantastic partner Emma Peach for over five years now, with plans to eventually get married and at some point start a family of our own.
My childhood was spent having fun and loving life (or so I remember it!), always preferring to be busy doing something, ideally outdoors playing sports of with friends, or playing with computers (since my brother and I got our first - An Atari 65XE; I'll always remember the sound of the games loading from cassette tape).
I went to Thomas Jolyffe Junior & Infant School in Stratford-upon-Avon where I particularly enjoyed football and cross-country; Football saw me playing various positions, "Goalie" in the B team until I eventually settled as a right midfielder in the first team, my only real memories were scoring from the half-way line in a 5-a-side tournament and when we lost the local schools 11-a-side tournament final after extra time. Now cross-country, I loved cross-country, whilst everyone else loathed getting their kit on only to trudge 3-laps around the school grounds there was nothing I could've enjoyed more. I ran a few times at County level for South Warwickshire, but for some reason never ran cross-country again after I moved to secondary school. I ended my time at 'TJ' on a high as a House Captain and also won the Sportsman of the Year Award.
I was lucky enough to pass the 11+ examination (I've since learned that not many areas do the 11+) and was offered a place at King Edward VI Grammar School, Stratford-upon-Avon. I was suddenly surrounded by a number of seemingly intellectual superstars! I often found myself at the tail end of the year, but battled through to come away with 12 GCSEs, 2 AS Levels and 3 A2 Levels. Not a huge amount to report through my time there, I made some great friends, learnt a great deal, won the SS Young Memorial Prize for Engineering as part of a design team, and came away with the 3,000m School Record on my final sports day (despite no training - I seemed naturally athletic back then).
I then continued to Coventry University to study Industrial Product Design, and by the end of my second year of study, was offered a position on the Masters of Design (MDes) course. A year in industry as a website designer followed, and lastly a year conducting 2 major projects, a group project and an individual project (each consisting of various smaller projects).
Having finished university and started running again, I found myself trying to get involved in as many sports as possible to lose some weight and regain a certain level of fitness.
That brings me to where I am today, a keen runner looking to see how far I can go and also striving to push myself as far as possible in my professional career after finding employment with Jaguar Land Rover as a Design Engineer.
