I entered the world on 29th September, 1940 as the Battle of Britain was moving towards its close. My father was a career airman who rose to Squadron Leader in Bomber Command. Mother had been a shorthand typist, the daughter of a detective constable in the Cairo City Police. They settled in England just before the War, bringing with them my grandmother. We moved from place to place over the rest of the War following the behest of the RAF. I went to primary school in Nottingham, where my brother Douglas was born. When the War ended we found ourselves in Officers’ Quarters at RAF Mildenhall in West Suffolk, but Dad bought a permanent home for us all in Barton Mills and sent me to primary school in Mildenhall. When Dad retired from the RAF he built a café and petrol filling station between our home and Newmarket, which we all helped to run for a number of years. My duties were to man the petrol pumps, while Doug was a washer-up in the café.
I received the “County Major Award” and at the age of eleven became a boarder at King Edwards in Bury, where I stayed from 1951 – 1959 under the eye of headmaster Bob Elliott who encouraged me to become a lawyer. I eventually passed my law and bar exams, emerging as an industrial barrister. Dad pulled some strings to get me into British Aircraft Corporation and I spent some years learning to cover up the many mistakes I made as a learner in that excellent but challenging environment! Slowly I got the hang of it all and was assigned to the Guided Weapons Division as a secretarial assistant, where I started to deal with minor legal issues and to write minutes of the many meetings of top management.
Later, under the tutelage of the kind and hugely talented Brian Cookson, Legal Director of the whole Corporation, I learnt how to draft respectable legal documents. That was when my career started in earnest. The years sped by as I climbed gradually to management then executive status in the Guided Weapons industry as a combined legal manager and company secretary. I travelled on business to many countries as part of contract negotiating teams, had great fun, saw great sights, and made friends with some truly excellent colleagues and dear friends at home and abroad. I used, to great advantage, my ability to write verse of the sort that could be used to celebrate special company occasions, and I continue to maintain that my unpaid poetic efforts actually advanced my career.
The defence industry went through many changes in my later years, my segment eventually merging with German, French and Italian defence firms. This involved many reorganisations, but when the dust eventually cleared from them, I found (to my great surprise) that I was still there – and still loving my job. And now I am a retiree, a Lay Leader of Worship for my village church at Benington near Stevenage and the Secretary of the Village Hall. Just wonderful!!
Would I do it all over again? You bet I would! I owe my happy life to the many kindnesses I have received from more people than I can count. God has been good to me, deserving no such thing. That is the main thrust of my autobiography. I have joined all the dots, and know how truly lucky I have been. Now it’s pay-back time! Thank you, King Edwards, for all you have been to me. I could never have made it without you. May success always attend you!
COLIN