Rugby 1960-61

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After school I failed to get a university place.  So I applied for and got a pre-graduate apprenticeship with the English Electric company in Rugby.  They had a nice country house called Dunchurch Lodge for about 50 (boys!) in a nearby village   

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English Electric had been assembled from various other companies, and was then run by the Nelson family, Lord Nelson and then his son, Half Nelson.  The made steam turbines in Rugby, but also aeroplanes, generators etc..  Another firm in Rugby, on the other side of the railway tracks, was AEI, a great rival.  Shortly thereafter they were all gathered op by GEC, run by Lord Weinstock, and that eventually ran out of steam in the 90s.

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I went to the jazz club quite a lot – trad jazz – and went to at least one concert in London with them.

I also went to London to meet other friends. 

 

I hitch-hiked, and once I went down in a friend’s Morgan 3-wheeler where one of the 2 cylinders was not working.  I met Frankie Reiss and his friends, and we went to pubs in Earls Court and Kensington.  One of the friends I hung out with was ???, I would stay at his flat.  He has a Lotus 7 which he raced, and it was through him that I met Piers Courage, who was to become a Formula 1 driver, eventually to be killed in an accident.