In 1996 I got a bit of free web space; it came with a new job. It's no longer there unfortunately.

I built myself a simple homepage, I was learning web design. The site didn't contain much and wasn't updated that often but people visited and asked questions about the Rastafarian religion. I answered all the questions as best I could. People would email questions and post questions in my guest book and soon it was very difficult for me to keep up with the replies. I added a forum so that the visitors to the site could communicate with each other as well as myself .... and maybe find the answers to their questions there. It seemed to work and the site became quite popular.

Towards the end of 1999 due to some changes on the server where my guest book and forum stopped were they stopped working. It was then that I registered the domain name rasta-man.co.uk. The web site was updated a few times over the next few years.The Rastafarian forum was thriving and there were many visitors. At this time it was not necessary to register for the Rastafarian forum, anybody could post. Although I believe in freedom of speech the forum and the guest book were becoming silly and full off pointless posts.

In early 2004 I "closed" the guest book since although there were some lovely messages people could not resist the temptation to just write swear words in BOLD CAPITALS *laughs*.I also upgraded the forum so you had to register with a valid email address before you could post. Nothing is bullet proof but on the whole it seemed to be a good decision.

So what about the future of this web site? Many things have changed in my life in the last 8 years, (nearly 9 eh!!!) the same for us all I am sure. I would like to do more, but more time is something that I am sure we all need!! The future for this web site will be what the future will be so I guess I'll tell you tomorrow... well that 8 or 9 years soon became 20! What a beautiful ride this life is.

Nick.