Should the two 'have's be replaced by 'had'?

'Had' if you mean to say it was was one of the most difficult times that you had been though up to that time and 'had' again if you mean to say that you had up to that time always placed your family as your first priority.

'Have' if you mean to say that it is still at the present time one of the most difficult times that you have been though, and 'have' again if you mean to say that you have continued up to the present time to place your family as your first priority.

Tes I'm always impressed by your responses. Wanting to learn something about you--for instance whether you're a teach--but your profile is in latin (?)

Oh, that. It's a block of "Lorem ipsum" text, which is Latin nonsense dummy text much used by typesetters and people who design text layouts, fonts, etc, where they want to just see the appearance of the text without it meaning anything. It allows viewers to focus on graphic aspects such as font, typography, and page layout without being distracted by the content. The lorem ipsum text is typically a scrambled section of De finibus bonorum et malorum, a 1st-century BC Latin text by Cicero, with words altered, added, and removed to make it nonsensical, improper Latin.

A variation of the ordinary lorem ipsum text has been used in typesetting since the 1960s or earlier, when it was popularized by advertisements for Letraset transfer sheets.

See here

http://www.lipsum.com/

I have never been a teacher. I studied English at college, and was slated to be a teacher, but I got interested in electronics instead, and later trained as an accountant.

After 80 years in the field of journ you'd think I'd know that, wouldn't you Tes

Thanks for that link

Something we have in common. For decades I was electronics tech, hobbyist, inventor

I started in the 1960s as a kid, fixing vacuum tube radios and later TVs. You could still buy World War 2 surplus stuff. I built a two-tube (we call them "valves" in the UK) tuned-radio-frequency radio from a kit (a super-regen circuit) and later got paid money building stereo amplifiers for hi-fi buffs. I did a few years as a colour TV repairman and also had a job wiring up prototype boards for a company that made radio equipment for ships. I get nostalgic about the equipment with "bottles" that I used to play around with, and I have been thinking of making something for a hobby. You do need metalworking equipment for the steel chassis though.

My youth was much like yours in that pursuit. Looking back I'm amazed how long it took 'em to discover the transistor

Actually it was "discovered" the year I was born, 1930. However its inventor apparently didn't know what he had, a crystal detector with 2 catwhiskers

Thanks, Tes yeux noirs, for the detailed explanation.