THE Club’s own Grenville Burrows was the star turn at our meeting on Thursday, January 22, in the unavoidable absence of our guest speaker. And yet again we were amazed at the depth and spread of experience and knowledge within our group.

Grenville described his somewhat brutal and restrictive schooling in Grantham, Lincolnshire, where a former pupil had been Sir Isaac Newton. His hatred of the school’s regime led to him leaving at the earliest opportunity to work in a local packaging firm and then on to the Air Ministry Works Department, where he was based at the famous Dambusters airfield. On being made redundant, he joined the Ford Motor company working in Ilford and near Slough. At the age of 24, he studied management at the local college, gained a qualification in personnel management and worked for the American airline, Pan Am. He then did an Open University course in Psychology followed by post-graduate research and then a teaching certificate. He specialised in further education and by way of Redditch College ended up a senior lecturer at the University for Gloucestershire at Cheltenham. And all this despite his early school experiences. Since his retirement he spends a lot of time in France.

President Jim Cox thanked Grenville for standing in at short notice. Remarkably we don’t actually know a great deal about the lives of fellow members and sharing our experiences in this way is eye-opening. Perhaps we should do it more often.

Our next meetings at Evesham’s Rowing Club Boathouse will be on January 29 when Mark Wilkins will present Air Ambulance and on February 5 when Bob Young will present Hydraulics with Frolics. Do join us.

CHRIS DONOUGH