Forms: 1P, 2C, 3M, 5U
  L6Arts, U6Arts

1962

2003

At school I was not the best of pupils - attending by sufferance - and I did not enjoy the culture of the leadership from the head, and the teaching incompetence of some of the masters who I will not name! I did enjoy some extra curricular stuff like editing the school magazine, doing some printing of play programmes, assisting in the library and general things that seemed more relevant to me. I turned down the offer of becoming a prefect, as I disliked the abuse of privilege displayed by others. To my great joy, I walked out of the school on the minute immediately after my last A-Level exam, only to find that I had to return on speech day since I had won the English Prize! However, despite some pleading from the school secretary, I enjoyed choosing an American fiction book to receive as my prize for English lit!
   On leaving JRGS I joined the Prudential in the Overseas Department based in Holborn. It was the most boring job in the world, but paid well, and I wanted to find out what I really wanted to do. I knew that I did not want to go to university since, at that time, the courses in English Literature were dire, and there were no film or media courses as there are today. (I was 30 years ahead of my time!) The only benefit at the Pru was the ease of buying World Cup tickets. After an unsuccessful attempt to get into film industry and BBC, I left after one year to join Greater London Council as a work-study assistant.
   Believing it better to watch people working than do any the GLC was a very good training ground. My first assignment was to work in the sewers of London - a most fascinating period with wonderful characters and great architecture - but crawling through a 2 ft 6 in pipe is not much fun. I also did some work on waste-management facilities, which helped greatly later on in career. And I completed Institute of Work study exams by 1968. (I'm now fellow of Institute of Management Services.)
   I joined the SW Metropolitan Regional Hospital Board in 1968 because it offered development in general management consulting within the south of England. I became an advisor on operations (from sewers to operating theatres in the same year!), outpatients, kitchens, laundries, nurse's homes and many other areas of hospital activities.
   Life was great fun at that time in a very inefficient sector where it was easy to make massive improvements in productivity. But, ultimately, the job was not fulfilling so in 1974 I returned to local government and the London Borough of Southwark, still in management consultancy. Due to its social mix, Southwark was a challenging borough but was really poorly led. When the chance came to join Hampshire County Council in May 1975, I moved immediately into a joint personnel and management services unit.
   There was great opportunity to develop, and I was fortunate to have a number of roles moving into the personnel field as well in industrial relations and job evaluation. It was here that I met my wife Lynne, who was in the same unit. We married in September 1977 and have lived in Chandlers Ford since, moving to our current house in 1981.
   I played football from my days at the Prudential, initially for their club Ibis and stayed as a guest player for several years before joining Carshalton - still in the same league South East Amateur - enjoying all the great facilities of banks and insurance companies but playing for a private club. I played till mid-Thirties, ending that career for the HCC team, The Castle, where I played with a work colleague who also hailed from Croydon and supported Crystal Palace. That started a continual trot up to the Selhurst Park, which we have done ever since. (Yes, I was at the Cup Final). I have relapsed a little in the last two years, however, due to time pressures and dissatisfaction with poor management of the club.
   Having achieved development to the role of county organisational development advisor I felt I needed to do more than advise all my life. In 1989 I moved to the County Surveyor's department to look after the general management functions of personnel, finance and IT as a member of that department's management team. It coincided with major organisational changes to the waste-management function nationally, one of the department's functions, and I was asked to provide a solution. Having done that, the County Surveyor's department asked me to manage it as the previous head retired. We had to let the largest waste contract in Europe at that time, a move which started me on a new roller coaster of a career totally unplanned but still responsible for the other functions!
   Ultimately, this development led to a very broad role investigating the subject throughout Europe, USA and Canada. We now have an acknowledged international system in Hampshire, called Project Integra (www.integra.org.uk). It is a unique public/private sector partnership for the provision of an integrated waste management service, which involves all 13 local authorities in the County as well as the contractor, Hampshire Waste Services. The project attained Beacon Council status in 1999. I was awarded "Municipal Engineer of the Year 2000" by the "Association of Municipal Engineers/Surveyor" magazine.
   For many years I have been involved with a number of national organisations, serving as Chairman of the National Waste Awareness Initiative, recently acknowledged by the UK government with an award of £30m over the next three years to develop the vision promoted by NWAI. A member of the National Waste and Resource Forum, I was inaugural Chairman of the Resource Recovery Forum and also chaired the CSS Waste Management Committee for six years.
   I was also senior advisor on waste and resources to the Local Government Association, and contributed to working groups of the Chartered Institute of Wastes Management. In Hampshire I am chairman of the advisory board for the MSc in Sustainable Waste Management at the University of Southampton, and a member of the advisory management board of the Wessex Institute of Technology.
   Yet I am now moving onto the next stage, a broader natural resources approach that links in with the themes of the Rio and Johannesburg world summits. In fact we ran a mini world summit in 1998 in Hampshire bringing over a number of gurus that led the Rio event. This event meant attending a UN event in New York to establish links with the speakers. To publicise our summit we had to put on a three-hour seminar and organise it within 24 hours! A second conference was organised in 2000 to follow up on actions; some of the actions are now being implemented via our new Natural Resources Initiative [more].
   I am an Alumnus of the Prince of Wales's Business and the Environment programme, and regularly present papers and facilitates at conferences. My book on personal experiences in waste management, "Project Integra - a personal history," was published in 2002 by Hampshire County council. I hold professional membership with the Chartered Institution of Wastes Management; the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development; and the Institute of Management Services. In the Millennium Honours List I became an officer of the Order of the British Empire for services to sustainable waste management.
   In a voluntary capacity for 13 years I have been involved with the Hampshire & Isle of Wight Association for Deaf People, the last five as Chairman. All this is counterbalanced by support for Crystal Palace Football Club and an interest in American History and World Cinema.
   Sadly, my wife Lynne died suddenly in 2003 of a brain haemorrhage, and my life went into a state of chaos as I tried to take in its impact. We had no children, but a wide circle of family and friends who are all being supportive.
   I have now moved to East Sheen from Chandlers Ford, in Hampshire, and work as a consultant in sustainable development and specialising in natural resource use and recovery; an agenda linked to climate change/carbon etc as well as resource conservation. It is a big complex set of topics all of which are interrelated to the way society works. Being based now in London is better for me in terms of clients and travel, although I am still linked to Hampshire County Council, which has asked me to guide it through the final elements of delivering materials resources strategy.
   I met my new wife Penelope just over a year ago; this week we have shared our joint birthdays - mine on 20th and hers on 22nd October. Pen works from home as a consultant too in the area of development and learning, and is currently setting up a Housing Academy for a number of Housing Associations.  With both of us working from home it is nice to be flexible about how we spend our time. Pen has a teenage daughter at home and a son who lives away, although he will be with us this summer whilst he does business studies work experience in London.
   It has been a major and happy change for both of us who, in late Fifties (and now me venturing into Sixties), find new partners and are now having a wonderful time. 

East Sheen, June 2003 Updated October 2007 Email