technical drawing and pinion with bearings
We couldn’t take ‘O’ Levels at Fulbrook Secondary school, so I had to do two extra years at Dunstable College of Further Education. In 1966 my time at College was coming to an end. Even if I passed my ‘O’ Levels, ‘A’ Levels were out of the question, my parents couldn’t support me for another year. I could imagine how that discussion would go own with my dad. That’s how it was then if you didn’t pass the Eleven Plus and go to grammar school. It was time for me to get a job.
I wanted to be a draughtsman. I’d seen them in films working on projects for aeroplanes, ships, and spacecraft. I saw myself leaving for work each morning, smart in a suit and tie, the neighbours would be very impressed. I told my tech-drawing teacher and was amazed when he disagreed with me.
“No. Be an engineer. Engineers have ideas, do calculations, work things out, Then they give their sketches to a draughtsman to make the drawings. No doubt you’d be a good draughtsman, but engineers innovate, they know what can be made and how to make it”.
Uncharacteristically, I took his advice and decided to become an engineer. This should have been easy in 1966. UK unemployment was less than 2%, there were lots of local towns with engineering firms looking for engineering apprentices. The problem was no one wanted me.
I wrote so many letters, but always with no success. In those days, you had to put your religion in a job application and even your father’s nationality. I wondered if the problem was because I was Irish-Catholic or just the fact that I came from Brogborough.
Some people tell me it takes hard work and planning to achieve success, I don’t dispute that, but if it were that simple many more people would be successful. Of course, it all depends on your definition of success. Although not financially wealthy, success for me is that Sandy and l live on a beautiful Mediterranean island, with our two children and six grandchildren. That came about from a chance conversation and a scribble map in a car park in 1985, the night before a long-deferred family holiday due to my obsessive work ethic. That scrap of paper resulted in a meeting in Mallorca that changed mine and Sandy’s idea about success, and we took a chance. It wasn’t planned, and it certainly wasn’t easy, but it’s been some ride. In the end, it came down to being prepared to take advantage of serendipity.
The following describes an initial happy accident in the long and winding road that ultimately ended in Mallorca.
I was sitting in the student’s common-room feeling dejected when in breezed that little ray of sunshine Sue Brown looking for someone. Sue was a pretty girl with blondish hair, a beautiful fresh complexion, bright eyes, and an engaging smile that showed a centre gap between her top teeth. She was not tall, probably a little over five foot and slightly plump. She was dating a bespectacled fellow named Oz. They made an odd couple, Oz was about six foot something, maybe an exaggeration, but next to Sue he looked it. We all fancied Sue and thought she was far too good for Oz. Sue had a lot of outstanding qualities, not least of which was her sympathetic, friendly character. She was training to be a nurse, and we often wondered what effect she might have on some poor male patient when she materialised from behind the screens, bursting out of her crisp white uniform with a hypodermic.
She was very perceptive though, a good quality for a nurse.
“What’s wrong with you, Bernie? You look down” she said.
“I am Sue, I’ve been looking for a job for two months, with absolutely no luck”.
“What do you want to do?”
“I want to be an engineer Sue, but no one will give me a chance. It’s probably because I live out in the sticks, and they think I’ll have trouble getting to work on time. My dad says he can get me a job in the brick-works, but I don’t want to do that”.
“Well, that’s a coincidence! My father has an engineering firm here in Dunstable. I’ll speak to him”.
Then, not finding who she was looking for, she was gone. The incident happened so fast that I didn’t give it much thought. Lots of people offer help with the best intentions, but in the end, they have to deal with their own problems, get on with their lives and probably just forget.
I bumped into Sue a few days later, this time it wasn’t by accident because I was coming out of a maths class, well away from the nursing section.
“Hi Bernie, I spoke to my father”. She handed me a piece of paper with Headley’s Engineering.
Southfields Road. Interview with foreman Roland Wilson and a date written on it.
“Good luck,” she said and off she went. I was astonished, I’m sure I thanked her, but to tell the truth, I can’t remember.
On the day of the interview, I dressed as smart as my wardrobe would allow and presented myself at Headley’s in Southfields Road. I introduced myself to the receptionist, who pushed a button on an intercom and informed the foreman of my arrival. She indicated for me to sit. Interviews have always bothered me, probably the overproduction of adrenaline. Fortunately, other people often see qualities in me that I don’t see myself. Never the less I sat like a man waiting to be called to the gallows. A few minutes later, the connecting door to the factory opened. The low rumble of machines increased significantly as the foreman, Roe Wilson entered the office. He was an average-sized man dressed in a white knee-length work coat with several pens and a propelling pencil in his top pocket. I have always had problems estimating peoples’ ages, but I guess he was probably in his early thirties with thin grey-blond hair hinting at a progression to premature baldness. His face had a fading tan, and his nose looked a little raw from to much sun, probably from a recent holiday in a more exotic clime than Dunstable. His eyes were narrow, pale in colour but bright and penetrating. We left the office and made our way through an area where a few young girls were making flat-pack cardboard boxes and went into a long workshop that housed a small number of lathes, milling machines and a row of pillar drills. There were no workers here; but, from the double doors at the end of the room, the noise of other machines could be heard running somewhere in the near vicinity. The place had an oily smell about it, not unpleasant, but something I had not experienced before. At one end, there was a flight of stairs to a cubicle with a large window that overlooked the workshop, we went up the stairs and into what appeared to be an abandoned office. He sat down and offered me a seat on the opposite side of the desk. It may have been my overactive imagination, but I got the impression that the last thing he wanted to do was conduct an interview with a candidate whose only apparent qualification was being the friend of the boss’s daughter. To his credit, he didn’t seem too concerned about my family background or whether my father was an Irish insurgent bent on the overthrow of the British Government.
He went straight to work asking me questions like, what is Pythagoras’s theorem, what was the value of Pi, how do you divide a circle into six equal parts, how do you use log tables to multiply, divide and find square roots (no calculators then). It seemed that I had frustrated his every move to get me out of the factory. Now, believe me, every interviewer has the killer question, for times like this, it’s something dear to them, and your answer will be the difference between success and failure. Roe Wilson had his killer question up his sleeve ready.
“Alright, what’s the sine of 30 degrees?” he said like a ninja striking without warning.
“Nought point five.” I parried, and then the coup de grâce “And the cosine is nought point eight six six”.
He was beaten, and that’s how I started on my journey to becoming an engineer.
Don’t ask why I carry such pieces of information in my head, I have no clue.
You just never know when some inconsequential piece of knowledge will come in handy.