16th February 1948.  I left school, aged 16,  and started at Marconi's Wireless Telegraph  Company aa a Craft Apprentice.  I had announced my intention of leaving in the summer, so had been moved to Economics 6 as a temporary measure.  My decision was greeted with some disappointment, as I was a Foundation Scholar, and had great prospects, they said, for an Open Scholarship to Cambridge.  But I had decided instead to go for a Marconi Apprenticeship, and my mind was made up, in spite of all attempts to persuade me to change my mind!  At the same time, I enrolled in the London BSc degree course at what was then the Mid Essex Technical College and School of Art, and committed myself to do the course on the basis of Day Release and evenings.  

 July 1947.  We sat the Oxford School Certificate in the Bean Library.  It was a hot summer, and I remember playing table tennis with Gordon and Ian at the home of John Tyler in between exams.  His parents had an upholstery  business at the top of Junction Road, and there was plenty of room for a table tennis table. I don't remember doing any swatting for the exams - we just took them in our stride, and we were so well taught that the exams were no problem for us.   I was in Science 5, and there was a great mix of subjects Maths, English, French and Latin, as well as English Literature, Chemistry, Physics and Geography.  We got the results in August, and I still have the certificate. 

July 1946

 Here is a photograph of the boys of Brentwood School, taken in July 1946.  I was in Upper 4, and recognize, even after all these years, several of my contemporaries.  There are Gordon Hardy and Ian Horan, my special friends, who I have kept in touch with until their recent death.  So there is no-one left for discussions of those days, thinking of the masters who impressed me, taught me so much and made me what I am today humanly speaking.  The fearful Hector Higgs (Latin) 'Get up on your hind legs laddie' - to translate a passage of Latin in front of the class, that is.  No future confrontation I endured in my career in Industry, (and there were many!) struck me with such fear!  There was M, Jacottay (French) 'I give you five verbs'  Etre, Aller, Pouvoir etc.  I still remember something of them!  There was Wally Waldron (Geography) who was said to have been tortured during the First World War, and was likely to push you into your desk and shut the lid on your head if you displeased him!  And so I could go on!  Looking at the photograph, I can still recognize Thorogood, Alleyn, Houghton even now.   They were happy days, and I was privileged to have such an education, due to the not insignificant sacrifices of my parents.