A Short Summary of a Life – Brian Wiseman (1942-7)

In the note which was with the reunion menu, it said the magazine needed articles so I thought I could contribute this. I am now 87. I was at the School from 1942 until 1947. I was on the Cricket Field when Newmarket was bombed. Mr Raynor was in charge. We heard the bangs as the bombs were dropped, we were not much troubled because most of us had heard bombs plenty of times. We had to stop playing because often the raider would return to machine gun the place and a field full of cricketers would have been a good target. We walked back to school to catch the bus seeing the wreckage. I was there when Sam Mortlock and company did the play about Abraham Lincoln, it made a lasting impression.

I was eight when the war broke out. I lived in Beck Row, which was next to the Aerodrome. Much to our delight, the School was closed as soon as war was declared. It stayed closed for about a year; the teacher used to visit us at home for an hour a week, then they opened the village hall at Holywell Row. Those aged from eleven and over when to senior school. There was one teacher for about forty children. We were divided into fives to sevens facing one way and sevens to tens the other. There was only one teacher, so the ten year olds, including me, had to teach the younger group. Not a good education. I learned to read and write and a bit of geography but not much else. As children of the war, we all had had a unique childhood – we were bombed off and on, had the front of the house blown in when we were at tea. Most spectacular of all, I laid in a slit trench on the aerodrome during a raid and saw a Bomber unload ten bombs directly above my head. It was not frightening for a child, but exciting.

So, to Newmarket Grammar School at age eleven, where words like Algebra and Geometry I had never heard before. Some of the teachers were Miss Wakefield, Mr Gosford (known as Gosser) who taught Maths. I think they were retirement age but had stayed to do their bit for the war. Mr Watterson was Headmaster. Miss Rich joined at some time and there was a succession of what I now realise were young women who I guess were straight from College. Some were good teachers and some were not. Mr Sam Walters came back from the war into my last year and Mr Stuart joined about that time. Miss Blankley was also there, Mr Raynor and Miss New. There were, of course, many others but I cannot remember their names.

What was school like then? It was influenced much by the War. Teachers came and went; we were tired due to disturbed nights and a long day. I think the school started at 10 instead of nine in the morning for one winter, but they may be wishful thinking.

Aged eleven, I had to cycle three miles to Mildenhall from Beck Row. I had to get there by, I think, 7.45 to catch the bus for Newmarket and I got home at about six o’clock each day – a long day for a not well youngster. I had a tubercular gland in my neck which made me unwell from age ten to twelve.

What have I done since? I did my national service, went to Egypt, was taken very ill and, after eleven months in hospital, came out on a 100% disability pension, so I have never been 100% fit since. During my twenties, the disability rating went down until at thirty it became permanently between six and fourteen percent, a nice round figure. In my twenties I was fortunate enough to marry Marion Fincham, who came from Beck Row. The poor woman took me on despite the fact that I was on by then about 60% disabled.

I trained as a Chartered Accountant and became the manager of the Mildenhall branch of Whiting and Partners. I moved to the Atomic Energy Authority at Harwell as a Finance man. Then to Oxford Polytechnic, which we turned into Oxford Brookes University whilst I was there. I worked there for 19 years and reached the dizzy height of Principal Lecturer in Financial Management and Head of Accounting. In the vacations, I ran an accountancy consultancy business instead of doing research.

When I was 55, I left to go freelance lecturing – my subject was Finance for Non-Financial Managers. Amongst other jobs, I was taken on by a foundation in Oxford who did much development work in the commonwealth countries. I did four-week courses in Jamaica, Belize, Bangladesh, Sierra Leone and Italy. The best one was in Vanuatu; it is one of the dots on the map east of Australia. My wife came with me on the best of the visits, and this was one of them. I did a lot of work in England and Northern Ireland. When communism collapsed, there was a lot of aid put into Poland and Russia and I did a lot of work there helping to establish a management centre in Moscow and running courses in Poland. I kept lecturing until I was 64, then became an examiner for an accountancy body until I was 71, when I gave up paid work. When I left Oxford Brookes, we moved to the south coast at Barton on Sea near Bournemouth and lived there for 30 years; now, because of old age and infirmity, we have moved near our daughter in Amersham.

I have had a much more interesting life than I expected when I was at school. I counted for my grandsons how many countries I had visited for work or holiday and it came to sixty-two. This was unimaginable in my youth. When I was about sixty, I hurt my back, which stopped me playing badminton or walking far, so I took up flying model aeroplanes. My claim to fame is that at 85 I was still flying aerobatic, which made me one of the oldest aerobatic flyers in the country, the planes were about five feet wing span and powered by an electric motor.

The note which triggered this epistle said that you wanted details of successful lives. How does one measure success? I have had an interesting life, I still have the same wife and am on speaking terms with my two children, now in their sixties, and my two grandsons. I have taken my opportunities as they came; I did not get everything right but I did the best I could at the time. I suffered from migraines all my life, I was never quite fully fit, which made things difficult, but we only get one go at a life and we have to make the best of it.

I did get to a reunion some years ago and was appalled to hear how many of my classmates had died. If there are any still about, I would love to hear from them at 10 Darlington Close, Amersham, Bucks, HP6 5AD.

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The Mirror
by
Brian Wiseman