Page Updated 3 September 2001
Isn't the World Wide Web a wonderful
thing? It's a rare experience to be able to read material housed on a computer
anywhere on planet Earth so there is no way to tell who will read this or where
you're from but I wish you a warm welcome to my homepage. As you will be able
to tell, it's (as the saying goes) "under construction" and I hope
to improve it as time goes on.
Yet again, it's been over a year since the last update, a terrible admission for someone who's supposed to be an IT enthusiast! There's no excuse beyond there's been no pressure on me to keep this up to date and that led to the inevitable. So why now? Well, there are a few new things in my life and career that I'd like to share. I'm also working on a series of pages that will chronicle our trip to the States last yearand a preliminary version is here at Holiday. I've also gained a new hobby - as if I don't have enough already! - that of genealogy. I've uploaded my family tree in a searchable HTML format and you can reach it from my Family page.
So, who am I? On a personal level, I was born in 1952 at the Derby Womens' Hospital and brought up in the Derbyshire villages and towns of Langley Mill, Loscoe and Newhall as my Dad moved around within the National Coal Board. I left Ashby de la Zouch Boys' Grammar School with some ineffectual A-level grades - for which I take full responsibilty! I don't think scholarship had a lot of chance after I'd discovered motorcycling and girls......
I had only one serious girlfriend and Ruth Salt became my wife in 1971. We have two daughters, now both married and living in Reading, Berkshire, after following very different academic routes. Luckily for them, they both took after their mother and had a good deal more determination to do well academically than I did as a teenager. Niki took a History and Sociology first degree at Reading, where she met Richard Machin. Sue went to Bath, with her boyfriend Mark Redfern, where they both did first degrees in Chemistry, followed by Doctorates in associated topics.
I became an engineer and now have over 30 years of experience in industry, beginning my working life in 1970. An apprentice and then graduate mechanical engineer, I was based at the boiler manufacturer International Combustion Limited in Derby and graduated with a Diploma from Trent Polytechnic in 1974. I moved to the National Coal Board's Mining Research & Development Establishment in 1977 and stayed there in various capacities until 1994, latterly managing a rock-testing lab and acting as Quality Manager in the NAMAS (Quality Assurance) application for the facility.
I successfully completed a Masters degree in Mining Engineering at the Camborne School of Mines in 1995, writing a dissertation on slope stability over the life of a limestone quarry in Shropshire. My PhD research was into factors affecting crushability in rocks and how that knowledge could be used to help manufacturers and users of crushers to make their decisions on machine selection more scientifically. In November 1998 I became a Member of the Institution of Mining and Metallurgy and I have also been granted Chartered Engineer status by the Engineering Council. I received my PhD in September 1999 and would like to thank everyone involved in the project, both in terms of supervision and assistance, as I couldn't have done it without you!
After graduating I was employed within the School of Chemical, Environmental & Mining Engineering at the University of Nottingham to research the uses of grouts and grouting until May 2001, after which I transferred to the School of Chemical Engineering at the University of Birmingham in a similar capacity. My current research contract is concerned with the effects of microwave cavity design and microwave treatment on the liberation of valuable ore minerals from their host rocks. We have established a web site at the University that gives more details of the work and will eventually offer a source of data, as we're ready to publish it. There will also be workshops held as part of the project in the UK and South Africa during Spring 2002. Contact details will appear on both sites.
While you're
here, please make "time" (sorry!) to have a look round and browse
the rest of my site:
Meet my family and check out my family tree.
My full CV is here.
To read about the papers I have published about my research, please go to this page to see more.
There's a lot more to electronic communication than the Internet. Click on this link for more on comms
Into freshwater tropical fish? It's a great hobby!
Motorcycling's one of my passions. My bike links are in this section.
And the inevitable links to other pages on the Web.
If you want to send a comment on my page or just simply say "Hi!", please feel free to write to me at home, at Birmingham or at Nottingham University.
You are visitor number to my
site. Thanks for dropping in.