Nigel A Close
Notes by Nigel Close
After several fun-filled years in North Wales they got rid of me by giving me a degree in Welsh. That is, it was written in Welsh; the subject was Electronics.
Mullard (remember their valves and transistors?) in Southampton were into the leading-edge technology of silicon integrated circuits and I reckoned I could survive a couple of years near the New Forest and the Solent. In the event, I took early retirement from there after 32 years, although I had soon become disenchanted with the huge IC business and retreated to the other end of the factory and the arcane engineering of infrared detectors. There I stayed, while a variety of job titles (Development, Test, Quality and – again – Development Engineer) and company names (Mullard, Philips, GEC, BAE Systems) rolled past.
Meanwhile, in real life, I became heavily involved in traditional dance and song, married Celia and raised two daughters. We live in a pleasant village just south of Winchester. Nowadays display dancing has taken something of a back seat, but we sing with a costumed West Gallery quire (17th & 18th century church & village music) and I still call for barn dances, ceilidhs and the occasional specialist dance workshop. Since retiring I do quite a bit of cycling, some swimming, much more reading and a great deal of pottering about. So, nothing earth-shaking but I can agree with the psalmist “the lines fall for me in pleasant places; I am well content”.
Nigel Close
25 July 2007
1 Beaulieu Cottages, High Street
Twyford, Winchester SO21 1RF
tel: 019 6271 4220
email: close1@onetel.com
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