Interesting in COVID times that the WF old boys are still going strong. My thanks to Paul West for starting this site and Michael Goodstadt for revving up Zoom and of course the current operators.
Looking through histories I was intrigued to see that a visit to Vickers occurred in 1964. At the time I was a progress chaser for Marshall's of Cambridge based at Vickers. I was lucky enough to have the entire batch of 10 VC10s at my command as I sought out the parts to send to Cambridge to ready them for delivery. That meant I had a company car and free entry to every shop - 475 as I remember - including getting past the police guards on drawings. The crash of the BAC11 was a sad day that no one could forget. However the sight of a brand new VC10 doing its maiden flight was magic - the trains crossing the back of the runway had to stop as the blast of those jets would blow the drivers out of the cab.
The old Brooklands track was of course of interest to those of us in love with motorbikes. My mother hated them but my love remained despite shaking hands with the Grim Reaper after a discussion on riding technique with my 1939 Rudge Ulster at 145kmh - I was at the Isle of Man for Surtees magnificent last year and my mates carried my bags for me the next year as my misadventure had cost me my spleen and given me a foot long window into the abdomen. Thank heavens for the NHS my nineteen and sixpence a week was money well spent - do not let the Tories destroy it.
Now resident in Van Diemen's land where we, being an island, can isolate with ease and keep Covid at bay. I am more like bionic man these days with pacemaker that has its own telephone beside the bed and a CPAP machine ditto all dialing ET when they feel like. I am still relatively fit walking is great as I live on a hill that qualifies as a Category 1 in Le Tour de France - Richie Porte is our local hero - a fit little bugger as a cycling friend calls him.
Now at 79 I am trying to retire but still have a couple of clients that think my computer systems are the greatest thing since sliced bread. Quite incredible! the massive hall of A2 size hand written stock cards that we used at Vickers would now fit in my pocket on my phone.
Best wishes all.
Hello Prof Peter !
Your bike crash sounds much more horrific than Richie Porte's in the 2017
Tour de France. He is amazing to have done so well this year. Our hero here in
Ireland is, of course, Sam Bennett in the Green jersey. But his rival Sagan is
extraordinary in the Giro these days. Anyway, I was 12 when I first heard of the
Tour de France at St. Columba's. Pere Bernard Joinet (from Nevers, ordained at
Monteviot in '55) was there with a huge map of France with pegs indicating the
route for 1961.
I was one of the Science group that visited Vickers Armstrong in 1964. I recall
we were ushered into the smallish office of Barnes Wallis and while
he gave us a talk about the future of aircraft, I was sitting on his desk !
Beside me was a chunk of lightweight metal which he described as the best for
making planes, namely duralumin. We asked him what he was working on at present.
"We are going to design a plane that will fly to Australia in about one hour !"
(Why not ? I'm still thinking). If only that industry had kept up with the progress
made in the semiconductor world, it might have happened.
Robbie Dempsey.
