• Thanks all, especially Beatrix and Stuart. Bristol and Bath are readily commutable and Swindon too. Even Southampton isn't really too far. I'll look for the book and peruse the websites. It's good that the general tone of response is supportive so I'm going to aim for the contract work and get on with the necessary preliminaries of setting up and finding out details and getting professional advice on accounts etc. whilst I wind down my current job.

    The whole department has now been axed so everyone from service desk to head, via developers, server team, change management and desktop support is going through redundancy and are job seeking in various areas of the country.