40s and 50s Memories
When I retired we were going to remain in
Australia. Beth had long been a busy Jungian
counsellor in loss and grief, with especial
concern for AIDS victims, the epidemic then
being at its height. I soon picked up voluntary
work, as treasurer for the regional Amnesty
group and then similar work for an organisation
supporting victims of torture, with three staff
when I started and eighteen on the books at the
end of my time. But bit by bit we all moved back
to England. Our daughter Rosamund came
first, about 1987, and has for some years been
Professor of Medical Law and Ethics at King's
College, London; we came next, in 1998, and
settled in Bruton; finally our son Chris, in 2001,
now a senior social worker in Lambeth. Bruton
has proved a good final retirement home for us,
between our family (and my brother Michael
and much of his family) in London and Beth's
family in Devon. We take four-week winter
breaks in Tenerife, and both there and here I do
a great deal of walking. While Beth no longer
practises as a counsellor, she is a supportive
friend to many people here and indeed still to
many friends in Australia. I have done voluntary
work for large local organisations here but am
drawing my horns in now and only have a share
of responsibility for running the little support
group for our railway station, always potentially
under threat of closure, and also for its web
site. We are fortunate to worship in the beautiful
Jacobean chapel of Hugh Sexey's Hospital, the
almshouses dating from the time of the Civil
War.
G. SHOVE
Bishop fox 1958
Graeme Shove came to King's in 1954 and
spent four years there in Bishop Fox House.
He particularly remembers Hopkins, Hartland,
Fussell, Pick, Bickford, Catchpole, Gilchrist
and Mike Old as friends. On the teaching staff
he has fond memories of Clod Morgan, Popsy
Townsend, Mansell Jaquet, and Stan Reddish
the Chaplain. An embarrassing memory
survives of a dress dance party his parents and
Jimmy Carnegie's put on, to which the Morgans
were invited. The Morgans lost out in a forfeit
dance, and had to sing a duet on stage, "If you were the only girl in the world!" At only 14 or 15
years old, he remembers wanting to melt on the
spot, but Clod never mentioned it later!
Of his life after King's he writes:
I joined the quarrying division of the English
China Clays company as a trainee straight
from King's and after a month at the Ullswater
Outward Bound School and started work in
Plymouth on £7 gross a week that paid for my
full board and lodgings and left me enough at the
end of the year to go by scooter to Switzerland!
In 1959 I moved to the Midlands and a company
site employing 800 between a massive granite
quarry and major precast concrete activities,
continuing my training and operating effectively
as an hourly paid employee.
I became quarry manager at the age of 24 and
by the time I was 30 I was general manager for
the operation. At this time I met Hartland (BF58)
who was I think working on the construction of
the Ratcliffe on Soar power station where we
were major suppliers of construction materials.
During the boom '60's we were also the
principal supplier to most of the motorways
being constructed in the Midlands and here I
dealt with most of the major civil engineering
companies and consulting engineers. It was an
exciting time and, as the site was a union closed
shop and with Red Robbo at the car factories in
Coventry, there was never a dull moment with
walk-outs and strikes over pay and conditions
being driven by the unions and generally not
the employees. The 1970's saw a big downturn
with the miners strike and consequences, and
sadly, I was directly involved in heavy on-site
redundancies. These were the days when
employees had few rights and were given their
cards along with their final pay packet on a
Friday. Shocking, but that was the way it was.
In 1984 I moved from running the company
operations in the Midlands and eastern England
(where Jimmy Carnegie OA was working, I think
with ARC though our paths never crossed) to
the SW where I was appointed the divisional
regional director for our operations from Kent
to Cornwall.
The early/mid 1980's was another boom period.
I was again directly involved with all the major
82