James Edward
Machin

Before Facebook became the running diary of everyday life, the foundations of the story were already firmly in place. Family, football, travel, music and a developing career in security all competed for space.

Arsenal was a major part of those years. As a season-ticket holder, Highbury was more than simply somewhere to watch football. It was part of the rhythm of the year.

When Arsenal moved from Highbury to the Emirates Stadium, I moved with them into a very different era of the club.

Football, and particularly Arsenal, became an important part of my life. For a period I was an Arsenal season-ticket holder, which meant football wasn’t simply something watched on television on a Saturday afternoon. Going to matches became part of the rhythm of the year.

There was the anticipation before a match, the journey into London, meeting people, the atmosphere around the ground and then those ninety minutes during which absolutely everything else could temporarily become irrelevant.

Being a season-ticket holder also meant experiencing the highs and lows that come with following the same club week after week.

Great performances, terrible performances, memorable goals, frustrating afternoons and the shared optimism that somehow accompanies the beginning of every new season all became part of the experience.

Looking back, those years supporting Arsenal from the stands form an important part of my memories of this period of my life.

Music was another constant. Heavy metal — particularly Iron Maiden, alongside bands such as Metallica — provided a soundtrack that would continue through the decades.

There was also an increasing appetite for seeing the world. Formula One, overseas travel and an international security career would eventually take James across Europe, Africa, Asia and the United States.

Long before social media recorded the details, the pattern had already been established: work hard, travel whenever possible, follow the things that matter and keep family at the centre of it all.

By 2009 Facebook had begun to turn everyday experiences into a searchable personal diary.

Flights, football, drinks, delays and throwaway comments were suddenly being preserved.

The posts were rarely intended as historical records. That is precisely what makes them useful years later.

They capture the voice of the moment: anticipation before a journey, frustration after an Arsenal defeat, whisky, champagne and the occasional delayed flight.

“Alcohol permitting.”

It was humorous, spontaneous and very much of its time. Facebook had become an accidental archive of a life already moving quickly.

The Singapore Grand Prix continued to exert its pull. Tickets were booked, countdowns appeared and anticipation became almost as much a part of the ritual as the race itself.

At the same time, James's professional life was becoming increasingly international.

One of the great privileges of my career has been travel. Working for international organisations meant that the world gradually became smaller.

Places that had once simply been names on a map became airports I recognised, streets I had walked along and cities in which I had worked, eaten, explored and occasionally had enough spare time to take photographs. Among the places that became part of my story were Singapore, South Africa, Denver in the United States, Hong Kong and Thailand. Each was completely different.

Singapore offered the extraordinary combination of a modern Asian city, international business and Formula One.

Hong Kong was another city whose scale and energy made an immediate impression. The combination of densely packed skyscrapers, Victoria Harbour and traditional areas sitting alongside one of the world’s major financial centres made it somewhere difficult to forget.

Thailand offered an entirely different experience — climate, culture, food and a pace of life far removed from London.

South Africa provided yet another perspective. Johannesburg in particular formed part of the international security world in which I worked, where understanding the local environment was every bit as important as applying corporate security standards.

And then there was Denver.

Travelling to the United States as part of an international career reinforced just how geographically broad my working life had become. These weren’t holidays in the conventional sense. Often the reason for being somewhere was a meeting, security project, assessment or some other work commitment.

But whenever possible I tried to experience something of the place beyond the hotel and office. That is one of the things for which I am particularly grateful when I look back on my career.

Security gave me a passport to the world.

Western Union — Going Global

That international dimension became especially significant when I joined Western Union in August 2012. I initially joined as a Senior Security Manager and was promoted to Security Director in 2015.

My responsibilities eventually extended across EMEA and APAC.

Suddenly my working environment was genuinely global.

Managing security internationally taught me very quickly that simply taking a British solution and imposing it somewhere else doesn’t work. Different countries have different cultures, laws, infrastructure, risks and ways of doing business. You have to listen.

You have to understand the local environment. And sometimes you have to accept that the theoretically perfect solution isn’t necessarily the right practical solution.

Travel to locations across Europe, Asia, Africa and North America became part of my working life. It was demanding, occasionally exhausting and sometimes meant spending far too much time in airports. But it was also fascinating. It gave me an international perspective that has stayed with me ever since.

My work with Western Union involved security and crisis-management responsibilities across EMEA and the Asia-Pacific region.

Travel was therefore both professional and personal. Airports, hotels and international journeys were becoming familiar territory.

The map of James's life was widening rapidly.

Morocco became another recurring part of the story, but not simply as a holiday destination.

Near Tameslouht, outside Marrakech, Jarjeer offered a connection that would become increasingly important.

The sanctuary's work and the people behind it gave the visits a different purpose.

Morocco was still colourful, warm and exciting, but it also became somewhere associated with compassion and practical support.

Hugo, a travelling bear, added a lighter recurring character to the photographs, while Lavinia remained James's principal travelling companion through the adventures.

Not every memory needs to be dramatic to survive.

In 2015, a lost watch eventually turned up in a travel bag, prompting the conclusion that “little elves” must have been responsible.

Arsenal remained part of the routine too, with visits and check-ins at the Emirates Stadium continuing a relationship with the club that stretched back through the Highbury years.

These smaller posts matter because they sit between the major journeys and career milestones. They show ordinary life continuing around the bigger stories.

The relationship with Jarjeer developed beyond simply visiting.

Fundraising and support became part of James's connection with the project.

Marrakech therefore represented more than travel. It demonstrated a pattern that would become increasingly visible later in life: when James encountered something he believed was worthwhile, observation tended to turn into involvement.

Family humour remained present too, including an anecdote involving Andreea and a chimney sweep — one of those family stories whose significance lies less in the event than in the fact that everyone remembers it.

By 2018 James was working with Amazon, including physical-security projects involving CCTV, access control, intruder detection and the practical realities of protecting large operational sites.

The work meant more travel and more hotels.

“Another Amazon......another hotel!”

Manchester and the MAN1 operation became part of that professional chapter.

Singapore also returned to the personal calendar, this time with Lavinia.

The Grand Prix remained a favourite event, but returning together added another layer to a destination already full of memories.

Jarjeer remained important enough that James used his birthday as an opportunity to raise funds for the sanctuary.

It was a small example of a larger shift.

Travel had initially been about seeing places and having experiences; increasingly, some of those places created relationships and responsibilities that continued after the journey home.

Supporting Jarjeer was one way of turning affection for a place into something practical.

The pandemic also transformed James's professional life.

His security and compliance experience was applied to the extraordinary requirements created by COVID testing and laboratory operations.

Security was no longer simply about protecting conventional workplaces; it was supporting infrastructure created at speed during a national emergency.

The work included COVID laboratories — static and mobile — alongside risk and vulnerability assessments, policy, procedures and training.

James's time with UKHSA concluded on 30 September 2022.

The period had been intense, unusual and unlike anything that could have been anticipated at the beginning of his security career.

On 17 October 2022 James began his next professional chapter with the Department for Work and Pensions.

The role brought his experience into the Civil Service and into a large, complex national estate.

As a senior technical security specialist, the work combined buildings, systems, risk, standards and the practical delivery of security infrastructure.

It was a natural progression from years spent working across commercial organisations, international operations and the exceptional environment of the pandemic.

The geographical scale of the job had changed, but the underlying problem remained familiar: understand risk, understand the environment and work out what will actually function in practice.

Alongside James's security career, Lavinia's work was increasingly focused on fuel poverty and energy advice.

The vulnerabilities were different from those encountered in corporate security, but the need for practical solutions was just as real.

Cold homes, unaffordable bills, confusing tariffs and people struggling to navigate support systems were everyday problems with serious consequences.

James became increasingly involved.

Jaywick, in particular, brought the issues into sharp focus.

At the same time, some lifelong interests remained reassuringly unchanged. An Iron Maiden ticket for the Run For Your Lives tour was a reminder that not every part of life needed to become serious.

After years dominated by work, the pandemic and increasingly local community commitments, travel returned on a larger scale with an Asian cruise.

The trip with Lavinia had been more than two years in the planning.

Ports, ships and unfamiliar cities provided a reminder that the curiosity that had driven earlier journeys had never disappeared.

Back home, Andreea helped hold the fort — with Boris, naturally, still part of the domestic arrangements.

The trip did not represent a return to the old life so much as proof that the different parts of James's life could coexist: travel and home, family and community, work and curiosity.

July brought a very different kind of gathering: EddFest at Knebworth, celebrating fifty years of Iron Maiden.

For a lifelong fan, it combined music, history and spectacle.

Camping, Eddie's Dive Bar and the wider festival atmosphere turned it into more than simply another concert.

Some interests survive every change of career, location and responsibility.

Iron Maiden had provided part of the soundtrack decades earlier and was still there in 2026.

Up the Irons.

By October 2026, Tendring Community Energy was becoming increasingly visible across the district.

Winter Warmer events, partnerships and community outreach were taking energy advice into Clacton, Jaywick and surrounding communities.

The organisation was developing while James continued his Civil Service security career.

Family, photography, Formula One, Arsenal, Iron Maiden and travel remained part of the picture. None had disappeared; the balance had simply changed.

The striking feature of the journey was geographical.

A life once measured through EMEA and APAC, airports and international projects was now increasingly measured through Essex, Tendring, Clacton-on-Sea and Jaywick.

The world had not become less interesting.

Home had simply become more important.