Just to conclude my career and life at Herstmonceux I have seen it from start to finish, which has spanned 40 years and it’s very sad to see it disappear so quickly. I’m glad that I had the opportunity to have 4 visits to La Palma to assist in the construction of installations on site, which was quite an experience.

 Between 1950 and today I have done about 30 years “on call” duty. This means coming out “all weather any time” so you can well imagine that during the early operation days at the E.Q. group when shutters were jammed, would not close, no rotation etc. We came in to their rescue to save the telescopes and not to miss a night’s observing, mainly during the cold frosty nights. I had no car then, just a push-bike to cycle from the Village to the site in the middle of the night, but it was for a good cause.

My sporting activities at Herstmonceux have been very good: I played football for the Village for about 4 years in the 1st and 2nd team of which I was the Captain for a year. I played cricket and football for several seasons. I won the Spencer Jones indoor sports in 1983 winning Shove Ha’penny, dominoes and points for Billiards, Snooker and table tennis. As regard snooker we were top of the 5th Division, top of the 4th Division, 2nd in the 3rd, and I’m still playing to this present day. It’s quite relaxing so you can see I’ve had a busy life, with 2 sons, 2 grand-children and a big garden so I’m kept busy.

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