It was six months yesterday that Barry was 'put away' as they say. We're both pleased to have have reached this 'milestone', but this pleasure is laced with bitterness. None of this should be happening to Barry anyway.
Since his move to Littlehey, Barry has been involved in the electronics workshop there and again has made a success of things there. He's become a wiz with the soldering iron and has been managing his own little group for some time now, to great success. Again, production has gone up drastically with him on board, so much so people came to visit to investigate. He is proud of his group, proud of their work and proud when they tell him that of the batch sent out, none of the circuit boards showed faults that were due to their administrations.
It made me laugh when he told me some time ago that he understood now why I spend time cleaning and looking after tools. Good soldering only happens with a clean soldering iron! And we're talking Barry here: Barry of the 'couldn't draw a straight line if his life depended on it' variety. Barry now drawing straight solder lines and other electronical marvels, which he explains to me at length and which I'm sure I'll understand fully the minute he shows me a board when he gets out. :) It was really nice to see him develop a new image of himself, a manually dexterous Barry, who has started to include drawings (!!!) in his letters.
He is now also getting into diagnostics of it. Finding out where in the circuit faults are occuring and such. The puzzling involved, beating the fault, repairing what was broken, beating the system, all these things stimulate them no end. And yesterday he told me proudly that his team were given two non-working machines and asked to attempt to turn it into a single working one. They did! He was so pleased. Now they have a machine that helps adapting bought components to the specific needs of their applications (which I understand help adapt various items - kitchen scales, clocks, etc - to be of use to people whose sight is impaired). Working as hard as they had, they had been asked to slow down, as other departments, such as those that make the parts they need, couldn't keep up the demand. Now they might.
Meanwhile, back at home, I will be entertaining my 12 year old niece for a week. It will be difficult to explain to her that Barry can't talk to her on the phone, that she wouldn't be allowed to visit, that the sweets she brought for him from Holland wouldn't be allowed through. That none of that means that Barry is angry with or disappointed in her. She loves him a lot and struggles with the situation. Another victim of this supposedly 'victimless crime'.
My tip for the day: In a real court, people don't assume that if a person has lied about half her statement (and is proven to have done so), the other half might be a lie to. They just suppress that bit. Turn the rest into a plausible story et voila. Why does a jury not as a matter of routine get to see people's original unadulterated statement to the police?
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