Bath Tec School

Hi David, and welcome from me as well. Please join in with our ramblings, the current topic seems to be custard, personally I think Lanham's prolonging the agony, you know how it is with these youngsters, they will ramble on about inconsequentialities, WOW ! that's a big word I think I'll go and lie down now.

 

Stu

Welcome David, It's a pleasure to have to with us. The custard business is not of my making young Stickler !! As I recall it was Chocolate Sponge and Pink Blancmange which we called carpet. I can see it now !!

 

Have a good look around David, I hope you enjoy the site.

 

Rich

 

 

Hi David.

I'd like to echo the welcome extended by the rest of the guys. Enjoy the site, that's what it's all about.

I say Rich L's innocent, he was talking about pink custard and choccy sponge, just like he says yer honour, honest!!

Have fun.

John.

Thanks for the welcome, guys. I'll take my time ambling through the chat threads.

Yes, that was me, Anthony. I was enjoying reading about people's school experiences and then something happened to my computer (as if often the case) and I just couldn't get into the site. Absolutely locked out by a piece of twisted machinery! I found this site purely by accident. My memories of CBTS go back to Weymouth House. Last weekend I drove up to Bath with my family (I live in Dorset) and showed them where the old building used to stand before it was pulled down. I don't suppose they'd be allowed to do that to an old building today but that was the sixties for you. I was pleased to see the bottom end of the town is being stripped of its sixties architecture. 

Actually, Anthony, I found the Wiki site by accident while idly surfing, looking for information about Bath. It led me to this site. You certainly have put a lot of valuable information into the Wiki site. It should be essential reading for any ex-Bath Tech pupil. I hope it leads to more people coming forward. Congratulations on a magnificent effort.

Hi David and Anth.

I didn't realise that you and Bill were doing the work on Wiki Anth, I'm surprised you managed to find the time what with all the digging and stuff at Midford. Anyhow, I think congrats are in order as it seems to be paying off. Keep up the good work, guys.

I'm rather intrigued that our paths have not crossed before, David, because your time at school roughly coincides with mine, 55 till 61/2. Had one year at Brougham Hayes. Interesting that you now live in Dorset, I was born at Sherborne!

Regards to both.

John.  

We must have been a year apart, John. I started in 1956 at Weymouth House. Class 1Y with Killer Keating. I left in 1961 (after one year at Brougham Hayes) when my father was posted to Rosyth Dockyard and I finished my schooling in Scotland. In the early seventies I was aerodrome manager at a remote Hebridean airfield when a RN helicopter came up to the control tower for a mug of tea (I was very accommodating) and he recognised a model railway locomotive I was building. We got chatting about the GWR and SDJR and - hey presto - he turned out to have been an ex-Bath Tech pupil. I spent a while working at Prestwick and then moved with my family to Dorset in 1979 on a five year tour as an instructor at the College of Air Traffic Control at Bournemouth Airport. Then I had a heart attack and lost my ATC licence. They gave it back to me on condition I never practiced operational ATC again (work that one out). So I stayed in Dorset for the rest of my career. But the connections with Bath continued. One of my sons went to Bath University and my daughter studied air traffic control at Bailbrook when it was an ATC college. I like to go back there now and again.

Hi David.

Yes, I realise now that you were a year behind me, but you must have appeared in the 1957 school photo (See whole school photos). Glad to learn that you are a bit of a railway 'Nut' as well. If you look in railway related photos you can see one of my offspring 'Playing trains' also some first class examples of O gauge models built by a very good friend Mick Jefferies.

You have had an exciting and varied career, fancy the RN visiting for tea! I'm afraid my past has been quite mundane by comparison. Been in engineering of the electrical variety, all my life, mostly working with machine control systems. It has taken me to some far flung places though, I have to admit, but have never been to the mighty US of A, not sure if this is good or bad! Worked in Europe and the far east mostly, those days are over now, but I still visit Ireland fairly regularly and love it. As you may have guessed I'm still in harness although a year past retiring age, trouble is I can't leave it alone.

Incidentally, I am also involved with the vintage show at Kemble. There are photos of this on the site also courtesy of Bill, Anth and Stu, they all came to visit this year.

Sorry, I'm rabbiting on again, I guess the rest of the guys are used to it by now!

Have to go, food is ready.

Best regards.

John.

I can't recommend the pleasure of retirement too highly, John. I reckon it's the best career move I ever made. I prepared for it in one way by having a railway shed built at the bottom of the garden. It now houses a 7mm scale narrow guage line. There's a couple of pictures in my album. You mention logging into the railway related photos. How do I do that? I'm not very computer literate. Retirement isn't about sitting round doing nothing, of course. It's all about doing the things you hadn't the time or the money to do when you were working primarily to pay off the mortgage. I used part of my pension pot to pay off my mortgage and now I enjoy life relatively debt free. Not rich, but relatively free. Once a week I spend a day walking in the Dorset countryside with a group of friends which costs no more than a pint and a pub lunch. Me and the memsahib get to go places when others are busy working which means we can afford holidays when they cost less. Since I packed in working we've been to far-flung places we never could afford to go to before. And I spend hours writing purely for pleasure and not because I have to. That's a left-over from English lessons at CBTS with a teacher whose name I can't recall. He left before we got to Brougham Hayes and was replaced by Mrs Williams. Anyway, like I said, retirement is a great way to spend your days.

I couldn't remember the name of that helicopter pilot until I looked through your past discussions, and there it was. David Paul: one of your contributors. Small world. And I've also now managed to get into your photos. Loved the old piccies of Weymouth House. What a shame they had to pull the place down.

Hi David.

Good to know that you got into the piccies OK in the end. I agree with your sentiments about Weymouth House, but that's proress  suppose. Its great that you are finding retirement so enjoyable and that you have so many varied interests. I've said it many times before, I reckon that if I were to retire tomorrow and lived to be a hundred then I will still not manage to do all the things I would like to, but as neither are likely then its all a bit hypothetical really. None the less I still find the time to do many of the things I enjoy.

The only English master I can think of that may fill the bill was 'Taff' Griffiths, youngish bloke with glasses and dark hair.

Just going off now to have a look at your piccies.

Bi for now.

John.