Born in 1940 in Coventry which is at the center of England, I was about 6 weeks old when we were first bombed in World War 2. I spent a fair amount of time in our back garden air-raid shelter just like the one pictured. These are called Anderson Shelters named after the Home Secretary John Anderson. In 1940 Anderson was replaced by Herbert Morrison who also had the steel Morrison Dining Table Shelter named after him. People slept under it at night when most of the air raids took place, or sheltered under the table during air-raids. The table had chicken wire around the sides to protect from falling rubble.
My father was a Gear Specialist and Engineer at the Standard Motor Company where aircraft engines were then being built and as a specialist, he had to stay there and remain in the war effort. In his position he was also required to have a second job as a fire truck driver for the NFS National Fire Service and remained at that job for the duration of the blitz on Coventry. At that time, the Germans were dropping a mixture of explosive bombs, delayed fuse bombs and incendiary bombs causing fires everywhere.
At age e
leven, I took exams and received a scholarship to the Bablake Grammar School, which is generally agreed to date from very early in the sixteenth century. The school was mostly dependent on charitable gifts until 1563, when Thomas Wheatley, who had been Mayor of Coventry in 1556, endowed it with much of his estate. I played rugby football for the Old Boys Club known as the "Old Wheatleyans". As I didn’t favor completing a traditional grammar school education, I left home in 1956 and started a 5 year scholarship apprenticeship with Alfred Herbert Ltd as a "Machinist, Fitter and Mechanical Draughtsman". I had passed a 1st class scholarship and was excited to start with Alfred Herbert’s who were then the largest machine tool company in the world, centered in Coventry and building and selling industrial machinery of their own as well as many US and foreign brands on every continent.
This scholarship entitled me to work in all the major production and technical departments and also required that I continue with a part time college engineering education. My most memorable job was installing Datatrol Computer Positioning devices on an American Devlieg Jig Boring Machine at the Aston Martin plant in Newport Pagnell, Buckinghamshire. They were producing the DB4 model engines and cars at that time.
Whilst serving m
y apprenticeship, I attended The Coventry Technical College for 1 day and 3 nights each week to study Mechanical Engineering and Production Engineering. I was moving homes or digs as we called them quite often and also managed to get a Saturday job at “Jackson the Tailor” and a Sunday lunchtime job waiting tables at the Earlsdon Working Men’s Club. For another period I had a weekend job opening and closing the Social Club at St. Patricks Church in Bell Green.
Following 4 years at Coventry Technical College, I went on to Lanchester College of Science and Technology and completed 2 years of formal education in Production Engineering with a distinction in mathematics.
In 1963 I was selected to emigrate to Mexico City as Technical Director to Bristol Aeroplane Company or “Bristol de Mexico S.A.”, through a license arrangement between Herbert's and Bristol. I applied for Mexican citizenship in order to take this job.
The older guy sitting next to my right (second row middle) is George Burrell. He was a Navigator in the 1000 bomber raids in WW2 and was shot down and became a POW. If you saw the movie "The Great Escape", he worked on the bellows to pump air into the tunnels. I met other WW2 heroes in that job.
Bristol de Mexic
o was a division of Bristol Canada in Montreal and were overhauling aircraft engines and wanted to start a machine tool manufacturing operation at their plant on the Aeropuerto Central which was then on the outskirts of Mexico City.
It was mainly set up to overhaul engines for Cuban Airlines but was a link in Bristol’s plan to exchange the popular Bristol Britannia Turbo Jet planes that had mostly been sold in Central and South America. The exchange was for the new Bristol BAC 111 Jets which competed with new American Jets.
Castro shut down Bristol in Cuba and the whole process was moved to Mexico City. We were to manufacture Alfred Herbert Machine Tools and I also arranged to manufacture tooling for Ford Motor Company for their worldwide auto dealerships outside of the USA. In 1965 I had my second visit to the USA and the Ford Glass House in Detroit on this project.
In 1965 I met a family on vacation in Mexico City who turned out to be with Union Carbide Corporation in New York and was offered a job in the USA after completing my Mexico contract.
Consequently in 1967, rather than returning to Alfred Herbert’s as expected, I emigrated from Mexico (where my oldest son was born) into the USA with a new job at their Chemicals Division in Charleston West Virginia. A year later I was transferred to their Bakelite Plastics Division in Ottawa IL where Glad Bags, Glad Wrap and Glad Straws were being thought about and produced along with their old Vinyl Planishing facilities and blown film.
In 1969 I briefly went to Triangle Industries who were reorganizing Victor Products in Hagerstown MD for the manufacture of IBM computer cabinetry. During this previous period, I had been developing plans to start my own business for manufacturing badge making equipment. I was designing products that would later be patented and finally made the break to go out on my own.
I had developed various badge 
making machines along with the 4-in-1 Identification Camera which would make up to 4 different instant images for ID needs. Unfortunately after about $15,000 in patenting costs, this camera did not make the grade as a successful venture. But Badge-A-Minit, which was my first patent, did. And with it, the birth of Malcolm Group.
Badge-A-Minit was also the first opportunity to start my own manufacturing business. Since then, I have enthusiastically invested in early Horizontal Drilling of Oil Wells in Texas, Real Estate projects from Massachusetts to Califonrnia, Black Angus Cattle in Indiana, Waterslides in Illinois, Flying and Aircraft Leasing in Virginia and Illinois, Marinas in Maryland and Virginia, Ski Resorts in Colorado, RV Campsites in Virginia, and a Card Counting hobby in Las Vegas, Atlantic City, London and Monaco.
Card Counting was the most fun but contributed little to my IRA!
I'm now presumed retired but not idle! Together with family, we're still developing new products and I get to focus more on my passion for investing and Dementia research.
