Site Search at bottom, vBorn in Dublin Ireland in 1942, I was brought up in a small house on a large West Cabra estate by Alice Walker a hard-working widow with 7 other children and for my early years I was Vincent Walker. Alice was it seems born in the 1890s Alice Penney with her only Dublin relatives a nice Penney family that we often visited. She had been brought up Protestant in a chiefly-Catholic Dublin that was a part of Britain, and though she regretted the Republic of Ireland leaving Britain she was still happy to remain a Protestant Dubliner and somewhat looked down on all non-Dubliner Irish as naive less-educated ‘hillbillies’ or ‘rednecks’ and also somewhat looked down on all Catholics though her two eldest sons both took Catholic wives. She had a small widows pension that she added to with some work so that we were not desperately poor as some were then in Dublin and elsewhere at the time – we were maybe more like ‘respectable poor’. Our at times four or five to a bedroom later dropped to two or three as older sisters and brothers left home.I was maybe ‘baptised Catholic’ by a probably Protestant unmarried 16-year-old mother giving birth in a Catholic Dublin hospital many miles from her home, who some weeks after birth did her own tricky private illegal adoption arrangement when most young unmarried mothers had their babies taken from them at birth for ‘legal adoption’ or ‘disposal’. She registered my birth with her name as Kathleen Wilmot but was probably Catherine Teresa Wilmott or Wilmoth but her private adoption arrangement certainly involved some trickiness and and she may well have had some unusual help from maybe family, the widow or whoever. So I was brought up an ‘illegally adopted’ Protestant by this kind Dublin widow Alice Walker.
Around age 8, I got rheumatoid arthritis and did spend some months in a convalescent home run by Catholic nuns when I made some pretence of being Catholic – maybe just fooling the Catholic children but certainly not the nuns. Though it was run like the army and I was fearful of the nuns and greatly wanted to go home, some at least of those nuns were not bad people. And their unpleasant daily spoon of cod liver oil may even have been a bit medically helpful. Alice's three daughters while underaged all joined the British army to fight in World War 2 and 'manned' anti-aircraft guns in London's Hyde Park.
I attended a small Protestant church school All Saints, Grangegorman, Dublin with about 50 pupils covering the full age range from starting-school age to leaving-school age. The school was in the same grounds as All Saints Church which was a Church-of-Ireland 'High Church' or neo-Catholic but sometimes allowed a child to do a Sunday service bible reading from the pulpit, which I did once or twice. The school staff of 2 comprised a Head Mistress and her assistant, but they made time to give me extra teaching to do a scholarship for one of Ireland’s best private schools – and aged 10 they helped me become the first pupil of that school to win that prestigious scholarship. Unfortunately I could not take it up as one of Alice Walker’s close friends reported her to the Irish Catholic Church so that religious and government harassment then forced my family to emigrate to Leicester England. It seems her friend had become jealous of some of Alice’s children ‘doing too well’ and around that time I was given a big expensive Hornby train set for Christmas by one of my sisters who had by some luck managed to marry well. And I was doing well in school. The Irish Catholic Church tried to have me put into one of their awful Childrens Homes that were killing many children (though we are assured not now).
I seem to recall as a child taking part in some Dublin 1950-52 'All-churches Parades' I think mostly involving Protestants and some Jews, and may have involved the Boys Brigade. Yet somehow Google and Wikipedia seem to have nothing on that, but it may perhaps have somewhat prepared me for a couple of 'Ban The Bomb' marches I took part in as a teenager in England around 1960.
So in England we did have reduced religious concerns and Alice basically continued her Irish life in England, though later generations of the family adapted more to Britain as many other Irish did to Britain or to the Americas or the Australias. When in Leicester I entered the nearest school which was the rather poor Dale Secondary, but 1 year later won a place in Moat Intermediate school and from there to Gateway Grammar school where the Headmaster insisted I must do Physics at Imperial College London and I would be a great physicist. I passed A-level physics well and was offered a Physics degree place at Imperial, not requiring A-level maths but requiring A-level Biology which then required good drawing that I am still no good at. I was actually taught some higher maths at the time though I did not sit that exam. So having problems getting onto a physics degree, the first degree I took was (with a close schoolfriend) a University of London BSc in Biology with Chemistry – and I dropped that after 2 years. I then did a lot of private study, mainly of physics theory, physics history and philosophy since these remained strong interests. Later I successfully completed two part-time post-graduate studies in Law and Politics or more precisely in Socio-Legal Studies both with Distinction. On request I took a lead role in getting those courses official UK recognition.
And in 1987 I successfully completed a BSc Honours at London’s City University in Sociology with Economics, the first year of which included Philosophy. The excellent Philosophy Professor tried hard to convince me to major in Philosophy, but I somewhat reluctantly felt the need for a degree with a better chance of helping to feed the family that I had recently started and the university was under government funding and other pressure to stop teaching Philosophy which it soon did.
I recall as a schoolboy closely studying Sir James Frazer's substantial 'The Golden Bough' and all of Plato's works and many other philosophers, then most major scientists' works and lots of new science papers as they published. I also read most major fiction including Tolstoy's 'War and Peace', and I have never met anybody who had studied as much as me though there must have been one or two somewhere.
Between a perhaps strange mix of various studies, I did a maybe stranger mix of full-time jobs for money and part-time activities for interest. When young I was for a year or two a published poet and tried other writing and some painting. I also looked into a range of politics and was for a time a successful mainstream political activist helping get Harold Wilson elected in 1964 though I soon dropped that. And also I looked into religions and even nearly started my own new religion. My first job application attempt around 1959/1960 was for Computer Programming with the then big multinational Rank Xerox, and from its IQ test they told me that nobody who worked for them or had applied to work for them had ever scored an IQ as high as me. That was my first IQ test and they failed me on the job application, so I took it that they did not hire ‘too intelligent’ people.
(I did around age 40 become a member of high-IQ MENSA but let my membership lapse after a couple of years.)
My early jobs included working with UK business and government punched-card computers and I ended producing my own range of economics related software and a couple of Android apps.
But my actual jobs to date in England have been a strange mix indeed – including 1 year as a Postman, 1 year as an Art College Model, 1 year in Pharmaceutical Shipping, 2 years in Construction Materials, 5 years in government Unemployment Benefits relating mostly to the poor and 15 years in government Affordable Housing / Social Housing Finance relating mostly to housing the poor as an ‘Economist’ concerned largely with financial computer systems. But
by UK Treasury invitation, as their seeing myself as one of the UK's top economists then, I became a member of the UK government's economy forecasting thinktank of 6 top UK economists (for 7 years
till I retired in 2000) meeting twice yearly to produce UK Treasury economy forecasts used by UK government and businesses for planning. It paid nothing more on my government quango Economist salary but gave some nice days working with some top economists, and at times our forecasts made national news and maybe did some little good. (But some saw that a few of those Treasury economy forecasts were over-optimistic and in 2010 a new body took over such UK government economy forecasting.)
Today I am still working, partly as a rather unsuccessful shopkeeper and partly as a website and computer software writer.
1983 saw me marry late aged 41 to Mary Finn aged 21 and from Bristol, though the age difference was maybe not typical of either of us, and we had 2 sons – Colin in 1984 and Adam in 1990.
Happily married for 13 years Mary then made a very big mistake and ran away with another man, but soon saw it was a big mistake and left him but had not been able to face fully reversing her mistake when, despite being younger than me, Mary died alone of pneumonia in 2001.
But somehow, having finished the bringing up of Colin and Adam myself, I am still going strong at 81 in 2024 and still keeping slim and fairly fit and smart and, though I have not had a bad cold or other illness in about the last fifty years or so, my eyes now have cataracts and maybe other ageing issues.
As a 1942-born child I did have a few vaccines including for Polio aged 14 and vaccines have certainly done good for many people. But as an adult I have had no vaccines yet and somehow
I am still going strong at 81 in 2024 and still keeping slim and fairly fit and smart and, and my worst virus in the last 50+ years has been a 1-hour runny nose and I did not get a Covid virus despite its prevalence, but my eyes now have cataracts and maybe other ageing issues.
I did about 6 years ago have a one-off seeming blood-clot event that disabled my left leg for a few hours, requiring some short-term medication and a low dose 5mg Amlodipine for high blood pressure that I am still on, but my recent home blood pressure was 138/76 and OK for my age.
Hospital duplex ultrasound checks of my blood vessels for cholesterol plaques and for blood flow then showed that I had 'exceptionally clear vessels' that rightly or wrongly I took as indicating 'no cholesterol issue' then more maybe than just a test of blood cholesterol-level could.
My doctor has given me regular 6-monthly blood-tests since for maybe the last 8 years which he lets me read and they have all been generally OK to date despite my ageing though indicating some kidney weakness
which should mean urine content not reflecting blood content or maybe if more otherwise just reflecting my odd high protein low liquid diet.
I hope my genes and lifestyle might see me still fit and working well to 100 though few manage that and some of my present lifestyle I have been very late in starting.
My recent general good health and slimness, though I have never been overweight, is maybe helped by my own basic older-person daily diet I have had for at least the last 10 years ;
Breakfast = 1 medium Banana + 1 square of Milk Chocolate
Lunch = a 120g tin of Sardines (with bones) + 7 Oat biscuits + 1 multivitamins&minerals pill
Dinner = 1 150g Meat & Vegetable pasty + 1 square of Milk Chocolate + 1 Magnesium 375mg pill
Supper = 1 Half 'Sandwich' of White bread with low-fat Flora Light margarine only.
But my Lunch on Sunday would replace sardines and biscuits with 4 small roast potatoes and a little braised steak with gravy.
My only drinking has been 2 x 500ml bottled waters daily, with a bit more in summer and then having some salt added, but I have recently added an extra 250ml flavoured still water.
Of course this diet does somewhat ignore the nutrition studies included in a 1960s Biology and Chemistry degree that I did, when many promoted milk, cheese and eggs as wonder-foods and vegetarian as being bad nutrition unlike views now. But I have done well with this my own older-person stay-slim-and-fit mixed diet to my present age 81.
In June 2022 I changed my multivitamins&minerals pill from Asda brand to Lifeplan Extravits brand as maybe more suiting my age and eye issue as having eg more Zinc, Copper, B7 and B9 with less B12 and K.
In June 2022 my optician referred me for specialist eye tests and this prompted me to do some study of ageing including eye-ageing, and it has got me to boost my nutrition somewhat further.
Firstly I added an extra 200mg vitamin C and 200iu vitamin E, more recently doubling both but later not the vitamin C, and started taking Lutein at 15mg (likely safe for an average adult to at least 20mg/day) in line with AREDS2 studies, and I also started on 650mg NMN for 6 weeks to settle on 500mg of NMN, firstly by NMNBio then by Vitamatic and
now by YouthandEarth, as tests showed NMN at least helped some ageing issues in mice and more limited human tests showed at least that it was safe for humans to take up to 500mg/day though maybe of little benefit for heavier-build people at that dose.
Effective mice NMN ageing tests of 100 to 300 mg NMN per kg of mouse weight suggest to some an optimum human dose about 8.13 mg per kg of human body weight with 3 times that as likely a maximum (for me, at my 55kg, 445mg to 1350mg). But some more wary of over-dosing suggest
an optimum human dose about 6.7 mg per kg of human body weight with 10 mg as maybe a maximum (for me 370mg to 550mg).
Since there seems little prospect of much funding for human ageing research, we must for now at least rely on mice studies for this.
Typically mice genes seem around 92% similar to human genes and 8% different, so what works for mice often works for humans but not always.
And there are those suggesting 250mg to 1000mg for any adult human, though 250mg may be too little for heavy-build adults and 1000mg too much for light-build adults.
(See http://www.jbclinpharm.org/articles/a-simple-practice-guide-for-dose-conversion-between-animals-and-human.pdf )
Since these recent nutrition changes I myself have noticed no obvious health or fitness changes but hope for maybe some longer-term benefits.
June 2023 saw drug agencies saying they want to promote drug-maker study of the use of NMN by halting its general use and others research by banning its sale, so I will have to see how that goes.
In 2022 I had 4 eye tests giving Lva 6/12 to 6/7.5 and Rva 6/24 to 6/13 and my vision certainly seemed to vary as in being weaker in the morning than evening
as due to blood sugar or hydration or maybe blood pressure until I added 4 more oat biscuits to lunch and a Flavoured Water to my dinner seemingly somewhat boosting my blood glucose and fluid intake and maybe my daytime vision slightly.
It seems there is evidence that high blood sugar can worsen sight so it may not be that, but I do read lots by day and not evenings.
And from 23.6.2023 I added a healthymood.co.uk 1g L-Taurine pill to my daily diet, which does seem to maybe somewhat improve my vision unlike D-Taurine, though again this is unfortunately based only on a few limited animal studies
but from 1.12.2023 am trying also a 100mg CoQ10 pipingrock.com capsule with their increased 20mg Lutein + 1mgZa and cut extra Vitamin C from 400 to 200mg and E from 400 to 200iu.
My latest 14.12.23 blood test seemed to show a maybe 10% boost or repair of kidney function that may be due to some of these dietary supplements or to a small increase in liquid intake in my high-protein low-liquid diet.
I last had another hospital eye-testing 25.7.2023 and the eye-doctor said my vision had not worsened in the last year, but may in future so offered another hospital eye-testing in a year and I agreed.
And having worn glasses for the last 40+ years, now I have adopted UV-blocking Asda prescription glasses, confirmed by the UV-torch I bought, as maybe I should have done sooner.
I have for about the last 18 years also sucked sugarfree Xylitol+Aspartame mints, begun as a successful replacement for smoking cigarettes which I have not touched since.
But I do at 81 remain still quite reasonably fit and healthy, with a sharp mind and still not-grey hair a bit more like a 51 maybe, and can walk at a reasonable pace for an hour or so. And my brain is still working well enough for writing this.
I have long used a face-and-hands moisturiser as of some good and for a time replaced it with a sunscreen but soon dropped that and wore a cap to improve my sun-avoidance somewhat instead.
And as well as still working and keeping active, I also still live with my two adult sons and a cat or two.
In recent years I have made and maintained a rather strange range of hopefully useful websites based on what I have learned from my strange mix of education, jobs and activities ;
1. New Science Theory on physics theory history and my own science ideas.
2. World Poverty on causes and possible solutions for poverty worldwide.
3. Social Exclusion Housing on poverty, housing problems and solutions.
4. Wilmots on learning and recreation including forums and store.
5. How To Kiss on clear simple relationship advice.
While I take new-science-theory.com as my main interest now, all of these websites and one or two others are ongoing projects of mine that some people do seem to really value, and I have also made a few other minor websites for myself and for others. Some more will hopefully follow, possibly on other strange subjects, in the near future life of this Irish man. For those truly interested in real science and especially real physics, I now have a new edition of my science website as an Ebook and a paperback book New Science Theory, and I have published a new improved English translation of William Gilbert’s Latin 1600 remote-control science ‘De Magnete’ 9781326494469 also as a paperback combined with it as ‘On The Magnet’. Also my ‘World Poverty in the 21st Century’. My paperbacks or ebooks I publish through LULU.com who supply the latest versions and may be the only source of ebook versions though Amazon and other book sellers do also market my paperbacks. My son Adam now writes SciFi and may soon make a good new science fiction playwright. Also my new improved 2015 English translation of William Gilbert’s 1600 Latin remote-control science ‘De Magnete’ as ‘On The Magnet’ you can buy at
http://www.lulu.com/search?adult_audience_rating=00&page=1&pageSize=10&q=on+the+magnet
I am now aged a youngish 81 and currently working on updating my main websites for 2024. Last year I published a new 80th birthday 2022 edition of my website book 'New Science Theory'.
The code I wrote in 2001 for my science website really needs an upgrade, from HTML4 to HTML5, but I am not up to it at 81 with maybe advancing cataracts. Not something there is any grant for it seems ? I have worked a lot on physics and am sure that I have made a very big breakthrough, but I have not had the money or backing needed to at all develop it. But I am on Twitter as @vwilmot or email vincent@new-science-theory.com or write Vincent Wilmot 166 Freeman Street Grimsby Lincs DN327AT UK
AND do hear me talk about my improved 2015 English translation of William Gilbert's 1600 Latin 'De Magnete' ;
AND for the best on science overall, especially physics, see New Science Theory.
