Very true Ted. I've only ever worked on bikes (and cars) as a financially necessary hobby but my brother went down the doing it for a living route after he left school. His "tales from the oil face" were pretty much the same as your experience - pressure, pressure, pressure, idiot managers, not much money and seeing friends on the sales side being paid considerably more. He stuck it out for about 15yrs with a number of different companies before quitting that world all together.

There are a number of "industries" where people do the core activity both for a living and for a hobby - mechanic obviously but that shades into other aspects of engineering as well. Any other jobs that people here do for fun? Painting?, decorating?, building? (doing it because your wife thinks it might be fun doesn't count!)

Anybody writing software and not trying to sell it - or just writing for fun and not trying to sell the book? I work as a photographer and often get people coming up to me at events saying they've got a good camera and how can they can get to do what I'm doing. The answer is exactly the same as for working on bikes - practice for years and when you don't need to ask the question you're probably good enough.

For some pro / am jobs the gulf is just too great - not many club runners make it to the Olympics or pub footballers into the Premier League and it's been a while since any St John's Ambulance volunteers asked my wife how to become a doctor.