This is not a self portrait nor an opportunity to bare my soul. Probably the best picture you will get of me is to look at the rest of this web site, because it reflects what I can do - a little programming, rather more mathematics - and what I am interested in: the Christian faith, walking, fuchsias, and photography. However, the following notes may strike a familiar chord, and ink in some of the lines in the picture.
I graduated from Southampton University in 1964 with a BSc in Mathematics, and stayed there a further year to complete my teacher training. For fellow graduates of that era you will know that the hart has been abandoned for a dolphin, supposedly to avoid any sexist conotations. Very sad - What are we coming to! It was while at Southampton that I first became interested in computing, taking part of my coursework writing Pegasus autocode - the great steam age of computing!
I began my teaching days at Dorking Grammar School, and I stayed there for six years. I have to say that they still stand out as the happiest and best days of my career, totally free of Ofsteds, and even free of Inspectors. (I taught about 8 years before I ever met one.) The pupils were highly motivated, and the academic standards second to none, and it was with some sadness that I moved on to gain promotion. However, while at Dorking, not only did I discover Badminton as a great game and way to keep fit, but I also indulged in sailing by running the school sailing club. Happy days!
While at Dorking I maintained my interest in computing, using Algol at the local Technical College, and establishing links with the computing section of a local insurance company. Those were the days of paper tape.
In 1971 I moved to Oxfordshire to be Head of Mathematics at Lord Williams's School in Thame. Soon after, I married Nicola, and we acquired our first dog - Brummel was the first of three English Setters we owned over the years. Our first son was born in 1975, and two more followed in quick succession!
Computing at this stage concentrated on CESIL in the classroom, and I began writing programs in Cobol which analysed exam results within the school. The programs and the data were entered on punched cards - remember those hand punches? I was very quick and accurate on those, though I say it myself! We used to travel in to the Polytechnic in Oxford to run them on their ICL mainframe. The was true batch processing!
When I moved to Hirst High School in Ashington, Northumberland, we knew that we had arrived in the most varied and attractive County in England. We would never want to leave! As the Pricipal Deputy Head, I was responsible for timetabling, and was able to pioneer the use of the NorData system in Northumberland. In theory it could write your timetable for you, but like all such ventures, it required many re-runs and a lot of human input before it arrived at an acceptable solution. It was worthwhile, though, and led me on to write TimeDesk a few years later to run on RISC OS.
These were also the days when PCs came into use in schools. Many had Pets, but as always I wanted to be different, and we started life with an Apple. Apart from programming a number of utilities in BASIC on the Apple, the other thing I remember most about it was the bowling alley game - very sophisticated when you recall that this was the late '70s. It would still be a good game today.
My final move in education came in 1982 when I became Head of Charles Burrell High School in Thetford, Norfolk. While I am proud of this school and what we achieved, it was by far the hardest school of my experience, made highly pressured by political interference in Education generally. We have moved many millions of miles away from the days in Dorking in the late '60s into a highly dictatorial, prescribed, monitored, legalistic, under-funded, demoralised and unforgiving period in educational history. Ofsted is just a particularly prominent manefestation of this period, and it is now driving many good teachers away from the profession. Sadly it will probably get worse still before it gets better, but I still foolishly look forward to the day when Ofsted is replaced, teachers are trusted again, and we have the resources we need to achieve true educational excellence free from the politicians. Dream on ....
When I moved to Thetford, the BBC A had just been announced, and I was determined, in a school which did not have a single computer, tha this would be the first one. We remained an Acorn school for 17 years, but sadly we had to bend to the inevitable in 1999 and begin a transifiton to PCs. Not even I could stop the tide as Head!
I retired from headship and education in the summer of 2000. I have not retired from work, as I hasten to tell everyone who asks, but now I work on other things, and can reassure those still on the inside that ... yes ... there really is life outside teaching.
I continue to spend much of my time using a computer, partly for writing, partly for programming, partly for organising my photography interests. I have a RiscPC and also a PC. Although I am still a RISC OS fan through and through, I bought a PC rather than waste time (and money) on updating the PC card. The PC itself is a good machine - it is the OS and software that often frustrates! W98 does have some excellent features; its the 'buts' that make you return to RISC OS time and time again. The most frustrating bit is when it totally freezes, so that when you restart it takes anything up to 5 minutes checking your disc for you! Roll on RISC OS 5, and the Omega, et al. The PC is good for all image work including scanning (using the fast USB port) and OCR work is easier and more accurate to achieve. All else is still Risc PC.
The Risc PC is an old 600 - the first ever to be sold by Norwich Computer Services! - with a 710 processor, a Cumana 32-bit SCSI card, a slow 2x CD Drive, RO4, and a 500Mb SCIS hard disc to support the original 210 Mb disc. It has 1 Mb video ram, and 40 Mb of RAM, and it still performs fast and well, even though it isn't a StrongArm. The monitor passed on, and I now use a 17" TVM monitor from Castle.
The PC has a 600Hz Celeron processor, 128Mb RAM, 13.2 Gb hard drive and a 40x CD Drive - an Elonex Webrider. A good deal at c.£700.
So that's me - I could, of course tell you a lot more. But some things however are personal, after all!