Born in Salisbury, Wiltshire, 19th February, 1929.   Moved to Fareham, Hants at about 4 years old.  At the age of 8, I built an aircraft cockpit out of 2 tea chests and fitted it with crude instruments, joy stick, rudder pedals and the pilots seat out of a Walrus amphibian.  Swore to fly one day.

Attended Price's Secondary School 1940 to 1945. It seems incredible to me now, but I was a member of the school Army Cadet Corps, the school Cadet Corps Band, the Fareham Army Cadet Corps and 1350 Squadron Air Training Corps ALL AT THE SAME TIME!   I became an avid aeromodeller and I collected unexploded incendiaries, shells and bombs as a hobby, mostly from the mud in the creek near our house.

At Cranwell as an 8M3 from March 1945, I tried drums for a while and aeromodelling (with Barry F) for a bit longer but soon found that I liked to spend my free time off the station.  Medical discharge came in January 1948. (Incidentally, it is documented history that Hitler quit in May 1945. He obviously knew that his number was up as soon as he heard that the RAF now had the 8M3s!!!).

In London from 1948 to 1953 working as a TV Service Engineer (That's what they called them in those days), first for EMI, then for Arding & Hobbs and finally for The English Electric Company.  June Larkin also worked for English Electric and we were married in September 1952, within a year of our first meeting.

March 1953 emigrated to Canada. Worked first in the Microwave Division of General Electric Company, aligning and installing duplexers in the Mid Canada Line.  Great fun, with a good bunch of guys and an unlimited expense account.  In 1954, back to TV with RCA Victor, designing, selling and installing Antenna Distribution Systems for Hotels, Institutions, Airports, Highways and Government Complexes.  Learned the hard way how to fall down towers and survive and loved all the opportunities to travel around Canada.  Our daughter Karen was born in Toronto in 1956 and our son Steve was born in 1958, also in Toronto.

1961 incorporated Hospital Television Rentals Ltd, eventually acquiring contracts with 19 Toronto Hospitals to provide rental television to patients. An extremely profitable but very demanding business.  14 hour days were the norm for both June and me.  Started to develop an interest in Stock Car Racing.

1964 sold the company to a U.S. Corporation and emigrated to Los Angeles California.  Worked as Hospital Communications Systems Sales Engineer for Executone Systems Inc. and really enjoyed covering my Southern California Territory.  Dabbled in Muscle Cars and Stock Car Racing.

1967 to England for family reasons, then in late 1967 back to Canada.  Incorporated Absolute Security Ltd, distributing Closed Circuit Television Equipment to a network of Canadian Dealers, to the Canadian Government, The Police Forces, The Military and the Dept of Highways.  We exported equipment around the world and also sold and installed Airport Security Systems outside of Canada through the United Nations.

1970 Finally found the time and money to get my Commercial Pilot's license and my own aircraft. I'd only been waiting since 1937.

For about 9 months in the early 80s I was commuting between Canada and UK, establishing Vicon UK for one of our suppliers, Vicon Industries of New York.   By 1989 the industry had become far too competitive and corrupt so we sold the company, took a 2 month trip around the world and then retired to a home in the country near Brantford, Ontario. We spend our time walking, on DIY or on flying to nice warm islands in our Cessna.

I've had a heart attack, have had two Stents inserted, three sessions of prostate surgery with a fourth coming next month and something bad has gone wrong with my bladder, but I'm vertical and active, so no sweat.   While at home we maintain daily communications via Email with the 40 plus Ex Apprentices who are members of Appsnet.  Away from home, we get on line any time that we bump into a friendly computer.  We have enjoyed visits by many Ex Apprentices to our home in Brantford and we look forward to having many more come to see us.  If you had a wheel on your arm, you are welcome at our place.

Worked as radio mechanic for local retailer, Hoover sales/service rep. and Branch Manager for retailer where I had been a mechanic.

1953 - Electronics dept. of Saunders Roe, prototype wiring of electro mechanical computer for the National Physical Laboratory and Analogue computers for stress evaluation for various companies such as DeHavilland and Gloster. Was obliged to join the ETU so was registered as a skilled electrician and promptly transferred to aircraft electricians where the money was better.   Assembling and wiring units for eventual fitting in Valiant cabins and manufacturing some of the wiring harnesses for various parts of the aircraft.  

Promoted into production planning dept., where the wiring schedules and processes for production were prepared.  Because Vickers and Saunders Roe used different drawing standards and also because Saunders Roe were not building the whole aircraft, bits of the Vickers drawings had to be extracted and made into new drawings for our use.  This was particularly true of modifications of which there was a constant stream, no two cabins were the same and we were told that there was usually at least 2 thousand hours work to bring them up to latest mod state at Weybridge.  I can remember three variants, Bomber, Flight Refueling and PR. After some months I was head hunted by the head of Production Development who was having trouble with the spot welding process used on the Black Knight Rockets, he reasoned that it was easier for me to learn all that I needed to know about spot welding than teach his welding expert all about the electronics etc. involved with the spot welder.  That was the job I was doing, looking after the team of workers and the machine when it all came unstuck with the cancellation of the SR177, Last in First out so I was redundant.

After 15 weeks unemployment I was accepted by the Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston as a wireman in one of their telemetry equipment workshops.  Lack of formal qualifications and too much experience of White Collar jobs was my problem.

Fortunately, once in, the lack of qualification did not hold me back at first and I was soon promoted to Technician in a section dealing with design and manufacture of the telemetry equipment.  That was a good time, good boss, interesting work especially as most of the production was carried out by outside contractors, regular liaison visits etc.

However, nothing lasts and when that particular programme ended I was moved to another section, not so good.  An opportunity to move to work in a Bomb Chamber maintaining a Linear Accelerator came up so I took it, noisy at times but interesting!   AWRE had to downsize and easy transfers were offered to any who volunteered so seeing a nice peaceful occupation on offer at Culham Laboratory (still part of the Atomic Energy Authority) that was I on the move again.

Culham was all high voltage, high energy and short pulse work, I was involved in high voltage switching and cryogenics, all very new technology, we had all nationalities there Russians, Americans and even Australians (one of my bosses was one).  My lack of qualification came to the fore again, a promotion was on offer but as my dept. head told me, I could do the job but he could not give it to me because the Civil Service Rules demanded minimum paper qualifications so somewhat disenchanted I looked further afield.

Plessey Radar back on the Isle of Wight was next.  Initially I worked in Systems Engineering i.e. design of radar sites, preparing quotes and even a visit to St Athens to modify one of the old Decca radars there and 9 weeks at Heathrow sorting out a problem, finally working on the AR1 installation at Farnborough.  Moved to Project Management with AR5 radars particularly the one at Dublin.  Moved to Standards Department, then briefly back to Systems Engineering working on the AR3D mobile radars.  Final move was to Quality Assurance where as well as doing Vendor Assessment on suppliers I visited The Frigates of the Danish Navy to sort out a problem there, represented Plessey on Electrical Engineering Association Standards meeting and that organisation on several British and European Standards committees.

Plessey withdrew from the Standards work and there were some redundancies going so I volunteered and left to start a Photographic business with my eldest son, that was 1983 and it is still going!

Married Angela (Jill) D.R. Blake 26 March 1952 and we have 3 sons:
Steven Born 3/10/53 Professional Photographer Self employed in partnership with me.
David Born 13/11/58 Ex 2 Para plus, currently security operator (Sterling), looking after oil workers in the Middle East.
Paul Born 31/10/64 Trained as Yacht and Boat designer, currently CAD designer in Architecture

Although with the changes in technology we no longer require Dark Rooms etc.  Steven works from home and I still do all the paperwork etc.

Hobbies.

I was in the rifle team at Cranwell and still wore my 1946 shooting colours on my shooting jacket until the beginning of this year when I gave up the .22 target shooting: the eyes are not what they used to be.  I belonged to clubs at Basingstoke and finally Shanklin which was the club that I used to go to as a boy when I was in the Army Cadet Force.

Cor. I do go on!

PHT. 4th.April 2004, checked February 2008.