/ Andrew Thomas White - Life Story

Andrew Thomas White - Life Story
An autobiography by Andrew Thomas White

Sutton Coldfield, mid winter 1962. Proud parents, Dennison and Jane White, welcome their first son into the world. They name him Andrew.

The School Years

Andrew attends Coppice Primary School. He hates it and in one interview is quoted as saying, "I'll get out of this place even if it takes the remainder of my childhood." Despite this, Andrew shows an aptitude for inventiveness and seems to take great delight in imitating sounds. On one occasion, Andrew gets into trouble after causing the children to evacuate the school when he imitates the fire bell by forcibly expelling air through his ears. The unhappy years take their toll and by the time Andrew enters secondary school he has developed an unstopable habit of picking his lips. Throughout his secondary school career, Andrew makes excuses for his habit. For his summer science project, he calculates that, if he hadn't been picking his lips for the past 5 years, his lips would in fact have measured over 1.5 meters in width and weighed more than 15 kg.

The University Years

Andrew attends the University of Hull and reads Zoology.

Unable to decide on his theses, one of his tutors jokes with him about making a study of ant tongues. Missing the joke, Andrew goes ahead with the idea anyway and produces a paper which is published in the science journal, Nature.

The Paramedical Years

Unsure of what to do, Andrew enrols at the Kingston School of Radiography. With his interests in human anatomy and photography, this seems a good choice of career. He enjoys working in the hospital environment and imitating the various sounds produced by the radiographical equipment.

A few weeks pass and Andrew is diagnosed with a sexually transmitted disease and referred to a specialist clinic for tests. While there he gets into a fight with a fellow patient after attempting to immitate the sounds he made while undergoing an examination. The two are eventually separated, find out they are mutually interested in computer programming and decide to stay in touch; a relationship which will become very significant in future years. On his return to the hospital, the doctors tell Andrew that they had made a miss-diagnosis; the malady was in fact chicken pox. Andrew tries to resist his old picking habit as the pox develop into tiny rasied scabs. Eventually he looses to temptation and irradiates the whole waiting room of 14 people with a mobile X-Ray machine while attempting to pick an awkwardly placed scab.

In the final year, Andrew teams up with a friend and forms a portrait photography business specialising in nurses. This ends in disaster when Andrew and his collegue are suspended from the nurses home after Andrew imitates a camera shutter sound while holding up a file-o-fax to the over-door window of an engaged communal bathroom.

The Career Years

1989, Andrew starts off as a trainee programmer working for Brown & Trout Ltd. He soon masters the art and goes on to become an accomplished programmer.

In 1990, he teams up with his clinic friend and operating from his small attic founds MicroLoft Plc, a software development company specialising in PC applications. The company goes from strength to strength and in 1992, subject to a small name adjustment, they sell it to an American man for £30.