I was brought up and lived in Addington near Croydon until I was 10 and my
parents separated. My Father went to Oxford and my Mother to Maidstone, somehow details of St Michael’s came to the attention of my Father and after some discussion via my Godmother it was decided that sending me to boarding school would solve many problems, as I was being shunted around between various relations.

            So after Easter in 1956 I was duly kitted out and sent to Heacham Station for my first contact with Roger. The various school items of Uniform were produced by Roger including the infamous black rubber mac. The 12 dorm at The Shooting Lodge was where I started and the use of black mac and boots was made clear from day one.

            Although it was very heavy going I stuck at it in spite continued problems at home which continued for years, and in fact my parents had no direct contact with each other whatsoever except via my Godmother and then me, to the time my Father died over 20 years later. During my school years I had to decide when I would visit each parent during each holiday, so as to cope with the logistics of getting kit ready for the next term and receiving and dispatching the trunk to and from school by PLA..

            On leaving school I was offered a job as a Research Assistant at the Dept. of Forestry at Oxford University. This was started as a three year research project to find the best sort of plant cover for a water catchment area around reservoirs. It was also necessary to find out how much a tree drinks, and this proved to be quite a tricky number. Putting a plastic bag over a 40 foot tree in the middle of a wood and connecting the necessary machinery to the power supply caused some problems and a few very nasty moments, especially if the wind got up or heavy rain fell while a monitoring section was in progress. Not only did the power supply to part of Oxford fail due to the load we were drawing on one occasion but the special plastic bag blew away in the wind. As this was extremely expensive we had to chase it in the Land Rover round Oxford to recover it, happily fairly intact. The test site I was dealing with in the main was in Yorkshire on the Moors above Hebden Bridge, which was very handy for commuting and it was there that I discovered that rain did not fall but went horizontally so it was impossible to stay dry.

            After about two and a half years I started to look for a permanent job as this was due to finish in about 6 months. As it happened the research continued for at least another 10 years but at the time I was not to know that. Having done some research I applied to Lloyd, Westminster and Barclays Bank’s, Westminster never even replied but after interviews and medicals I was accepted by both Lloyds and Barclays. Lloyds told me I might be sent anywhere and Barclays told me there was a position either in Oxford or Kent. As I knew more people in Maidstone and my Mother and relations lived in the area I plumped for Kent. My first branch was Strood on the Medway and I started at the bottom making tea and doing all the grotty jobs even though I was a late entrant at 21 it made no difference at all. Everything was done by hand in those days, no machines, so you had to be able to add up a page of figures in your head and get it right. I was next sent to do 18 months at Heathrow Airport, this was a plum job as you had to be very accurate with a till and able to think on your feet as all sorts of problems were likely to come up especially at weekends and during the night.

            Having helped train up the next shifts to man the counter at Heathrow I returned to branch work in Kent. One was moved about, at a moments notice sometimes to do various jobs and gradually I gained higher grades until being selected to move to the banks Inspection Department for Internal Audit and Fraud. This was again a plum job and difficult to get into but someone must have thought my face  would fit.

             Although based in London I was working almost entirely in my old region, which was very unusual and I was only the second person to do this although it became quite common once this new approach had been tested out. I spent just under 4 years on Inspection and although much of the work was mundane it was a very useful experience, as it taught me what to look for when I was posted as a Manager on leaving the Department. During my time on the team we uncovered all sorts of fraud and fiddles both from the public and staff, which in some cases took months to sort out and trace every entry on an account, so that we had enough evidence to involve the police and get a conviction. The job also required great tact as some Managers, who were of a much higher grade than me, did not always take too kindly to being told that they were not doing as good a job of running a branch as they thought. Although I did have lending experience I chose to stay in Operations and was thus made an Operations manager when I left Inspection.

            As an Ops Manager you are expected to know and be able to do anything and everything as far as daily life in the branch was concerned and this made life fairly interesting and pretty hectic on many occasions. I started with a branch of 20 staff and worked up though 3 branches until I had 150 staff, the more you have, the more eyes you need in the back of your head as well as a 6th sense of what is going on around you.

            I was then transferred to Regional Office as Assistant to the Financial Manager, this section dealt with IT matters in Regional office and Income and Expenses throughout the region in minute detail. The Region covered from Dartford to Worthing being all Kent and Sussex, and part of Surrey. The section reported directly to The Regional Directors who needed to be kept up to date with the progress or not against targets on a monthly basis and as there were some 3000 staff in the region this was a very busy section with deadlines that had to be met. This also meant training branch staff on the use of PC’s for use as administration/ business tools which was only just being introduced rather than a time consuming paper based system.

            Then I was in charge of replacing all the branch accounting machines in the region on a rolling programme which took about 7 months to complete. I sat on a number of Bank wide committees on various subjects and then dealt with customers Region wide as the Customer Service Manager which was dealing with complaints and sorting them out, often at considerable cost to the branch concerned who had not resolved the problem in the first place. Finally I was appointed as Regional Operations Manager which covered all technical and admin. matters relating to the building and the 250 plus staff who worked in it. Also I was responsible for all legal and technical matters raised by all the branches in our region which included fraud both by staff and the public. In one instance it was necessary to have a photo put on BBC’s Crime Watch to find out who they were, it was successful and the person was sent to prison for 2 years.

            When it was decided to halve the number of Regions in the country to save costs and staff as ours was to be merged with South London I opted for Voluntary Redundancy having done 30 years. This was agreed and I supervised the merge and closed down our building and left 31/12/95.

            Subsequently Jean and I bought a property in Cromer, Norfolk to do it up and do Bed & Breakfast with 3 double rooms en suite. The renovations took about 8 months for the inside to be up and running as the property was a wreck, although with character having been built in 1910. We ran successfully for a year until we were made an offer we could not refuse, so we moved to Wroxham where we now are. We still do B & B with one double room and Jean continues with her bespoke Picture Framing all of which gives us enough with my reduced bank pension to keep body and soul together. So life goes on without the great stress of work and at last one can actually enjoy what we are doing, which has made a huge difference. Being an only child St Michael’s taught me to be independent from an early age, and to have consideration and respect for others which is sadly lacking these days where the attitude is often “what’s in it for me”.