About Me

I was born in Norwich, Norfolk, UK (a Fine City!), but lived, and thus undertook my early education, mainly in Bristol and the Midlands before gaining a scholarship to study at Owens College, The Victoria University of Manchester, to take my B.Sc. degree in Physics & Electronic Engineering. This joint-honours degree enabled me to become a member of both the Institute of Physics and the Institution of Electrical Engineers (now the Institution of Engineering and Technology) and thus I am a Chartered Physicist and a Chartered Engineer. I later attended the University of Essex, studying under Prof. Mike Brady, and obtained a Diploma in Computing Science.

After graduation I moved back to East Anglia to work for Post Office Telecommunications, now called British Telecom: the premier British telecoms company. I was involved with the development of the 'System X' range of computer-controlled exchanges for many years, in collaboration with Plessey, GEC & STC. Working firstly on the Pre-Processor Utility (the processing system for small exchanges) and then on the Maintenance & Control Subsystem (MCS) I also contributed to a number of influential project-wide review boards. I then moved into Consumer Products to lead a team collaborating with ICL on the development of the 'Tonto' multi-function workstation: a versatile device but unfortunately a little ahead of its time. It did have a starring role with Noel Edmonds from the BT Tower one Christmas though!

Next, I returned to System X to continue my involvement with MCS, now called the Operations & Maintenance Centre, before transferring to the BT Research Centre near Ipswich, now called Adastral Park, to head up the development of line-test equipment for ISDN circuits (the original "broadband"!). The extensive software development required in this project re-awakened my interest in Software Quality Assurance techniques (which had begun while working with Plessey) with the result that, once the ISDN work was complete, I was asked to roll out SQA processes across a large BT division.

BT's research and development activities were undergoing a number of extensive re-organisations and re-structurings at this time however, and it soon became apparent that my division was about to be severely "down-sized". I thus eventually opted to take (very!) early retirement in April 1996. I now do a little IT consultancy work, help with the accounts for a local firm, and assist with the running of Waveney Light Opera Group in Beccles, serving as its Secretary from 1994 to 2018.

Although basically of a Conservative disposition politically I am a strong supporter of employee rights, and while at BT served on the branch committee of the former Society of Telecom Executives, now part of Prospect, the union for professional scientists and engineers.

After marriage in 1975 my wife Sandra and I finally settled in the delightful village of Laxfield, Suffolk, UK, accompanied by the various cats who shared our lives over the years (click here for pictures!). In 2015 we became sole owners of an acre of meadowland behind our house, originally purchased jointly with near-neighbours in 2004. Called Wash Meadow, you can read more about it by clicking here.

Unfortunately, my wife died suddenly and unexpectedly in early 2023 so it's just me and the feline companions now, desperately trying to remember what Sandra had said about growing fruit & veg!

My main interests are singing (light opera and choral / small group works); astronomy [I am a Member of the British Astronomical Association]; space science [I am an Associate Fellow of the British Interplanetary Society]; bridge; personal computing, and genealogy. I became a published author in June 2017 when I co-wrote a paper on the history of the Great Observatory at Downside Abbey, which was published in The Antiquarian Astronomer, the Journal of the Society for the History of Astronomy. Journal Issues are made available for general access two years after publication, and so if you are interested in reading the article you can do so by clicking here and scrolling down to the Past Issues section. My paper is in Issue 11.

You can contact me by email by clicking .

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