Having failed to get into university I discovered, through the good offices of Birmingham Education Department's Careers Service, that the then named College of Technology, Birmingham offered London University external degrees. They took me under their wing, thus enabling me to emerge three years later with an upper second class general honours degree in mathematics and physics. Though what I now remember of those subjects could be written on a postage stamp! On payment of the appropriate fee London University also made me a member of its now defunct (since 2003) Convocation, thus adding a dash of colour to an otherwise rather drab academic hood!

1961	Three excellent tutors Fred Jenkins, Humphrey Orwin and Frank Hill	Fellow students David Dodd and John Cheatle

Early the next year (1962) I went down to the Albert Hall, London with Mom and Dad to join 1200 other new graduates (and their moms and dads) to shuffle past the Chancellor of the University, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, who was younger then than I am now. Only at that point, I understand, did I really become a graduate of the University of London.

In a quite unjustified fit of generosity some months later I was made, this time at no charge, an Associate of the College of Technology, Birmingham (second class honours in Physics). I think this was intended to prevent, some years later, my claiming a full blown degree from them!

After a brief and inglorious spell at Bristol University I returned to my Alma Mater to resume as an external student of London University, aspiring to a Ph.D. degree. To that end it was envisaged that I should become an expert on the "frequency distribution of electrical noise in thermionic valves". The best laid plans of mice and men ....!

The College became the College of Advanced Technology, Birmingham during my time as a Research Assistant in Physics.

Back row (L to R): Dudley Hathaway (Electronics), Jim Perkins (Electronics), Dennis Crumpton (Nuclear physics), Colin House (Optics)

Front row (L to R): Sveto Bosic (Electronics), Dr C Seaton Bull (Reader in Physics), Humphrey Yorke (Opthalmic optics)

Early in 1965 I left (without the hoped for Ph.D.) to enter the world of work.

My departure removed, it would seem, the last hurdle to the institution becoming, in 1966, the University of Aston in Birmingham.

So the whole of my 11+ education had taken place in Aston - a location infinitely more ancient than the surrounding Birmingham. Indeed, Aston was a thriving political centre when Birmingham was still a collection of mud huts!