NextBackThe boy walked beside his mother clutching a large envelope containing amongst other things a school leaving certificate that was a testament to academic mediocrity, he was fifteen and it was time to leave school and find a job. In spite of the certificate he was successfully enrolled as an apprentice planning and estimating engineer at the High Duty alloys factory. It was not what he had in mind in fact he had very little in mind other than a loose idea about going on the stage. The boy had mentioned this to his father who summarily brushed it aside with "There's no future in it and it's full of Nancy boys".
Looking back I can now see my fathers point, with his working class background he was merely reflecting the mores of the time and could only suggest a solid and dependable career in something like engineering. So there I was, condemned to follow in my fathers' footsteps and to embark on a career hi engineering, any deficiencies in my education would be rectified by Further Education Courses and evening classes at Redditch Technical School. The interview committee was blissfully unaware of my limitations. No one was more ill equipped for a career in engineering than I and had I remained in that profession I could imagine people later on whispering to each other, * That's Thomas, don't fly in his planes", "Don't sail on his ships", "His wheelbarrows look good, but they don't wheel." I would have been to engineering what King Herod was to baby sitting.
