TECH
I was in the REME, I’ll have you know
I grew up in the Space Race. Christmas presents were toy trains, racing cars, rockets and the Action Man Mercury capsule. My first “Saturday” job was working in the local garage - Tomlin’s on Icknield Way, Letchworth. According to Companies House, the business is still going with old George Tomlin’s boys listed as directors. I can’t imagine they are still working although the garage is still there as a franchised petrol station. I’ve been “techy” since then; I was paid in tools and experience as I learned to swear and spray in the pit and the paint shop. Not much later, I was in the REME, having completed basic training in the hot summer of 1976 at Arborfield.
Less than a decade later, I was a systems engineer, designing, building and installing flight crew training simulators, modelling and coding in Fortran and assembly language. I got the job principally on my REME credentials. The “ancillaries” section leader, Peter Mellor, having served in the RAF, understood what military service represents and valued it. I had learned COBOL whilst stationed at Middle Wallop and quickly picked up new languages in the dynamic environment of flight crew training devices, which was rapidly evolving. It was exciting to be able to “fly” these aircraft, with their high-resolution out-of-the-window visual systems and high-G hydraulic motion systems. I picked up a specialisation in the Boeing 757 and 767 EICAS system at the heart of systems management in the new “glass” cockpits, which took me all over the world.
Certification authorities like the CAA/FAA and JAA were exacting in their requirements but the prize we achieved was the accreditation for pilots to convert from one aircraft type to another without burning any fuel. I became a project manager whilst still in my 20’s and spent the next decade in various senior technical roles, landing at GEC-Marconi in Fife. That move turned out to have been a huge mistake, professionally speaking, resulting in a negotiated sabbatical in China that allowed me time and opportunity to set up my own software business. I studied with the Open University around this time and obtained my honours degree in physics and mathematics, which was fun and interesting and paved the way for me to earn a PGCE at Moray House.
By the time I had closed down the business against hostile legislation from the Labour Government1, using things like php, SQL and some clever XSL transforms, I had written and documented award-winning and innovative software solutions (see screenshot) across Scotland. I finally learned to fly officially (having “unofficially” taken the controls of Army helicopters and various full-flight 757 and 767 simulators), gaining my private pilot’s licence in a Piper PA-28 at Tayside Aviation in Fife. I brought all of those skills and attitudes to education when I became a teacher in 2004 and found none of them to be particularly valued by education employers – quite the opposite, in fact. That aside, I am proud to still be that techy person who grew up in the glory of the great achievements of the 1960s and made a few of my own. I’d like to think there are more to come.
Professional memberships
I have been a member of different institutes and institutions throughout various career changes, recognising from an early age the importance of associating with those in one’s field to mentor and to be mentored. At 13, when I was working Saturday mornings in Tomlin’s Garage, I took myself to Birdcage Walk in London to speak with the Institute of Mechanical Engineers about careers. They were very kind and helpful to me. The careers advisors at my school, like many others I have encountered since, were worse than useless, suggesting that if I were not aiming for Cambridge, I may as well quit now and go into industry “to make grub screws”. I left school at 16 to make some money instead, as a bass player, administrator and barman before landing in the Army, which turned out to be the very best career choice I ever made. Later, as a military avionics technician, I joined the Society of Licensed Aircraft Engineers and Technologists (SLAET), which merged with and was eventually subsumed into the Royal Aeronautical Society. I was elected a Fellow of the RAeS in January 2025 and am proud to be associated with their work and commitment.
The Operational Research Society and Institute of Directors were useful when they were relevant to the work I was doing (mathematical modelling as a System Engineer, and Technical Director, respectively, both in Flight Simulation). I wasted money on a Fellowship of the RSA for a while, and jumped through some fairly arbitrary hoops, loved so much by those in education as a substitute for professionalism, to gain Senior Fellowship of the HEA. I have valued my charter and membership of the Institute of Physics, as well as the commitment of its members to supporting, developing and promoting the work of physicists everywhere.
Nick Hood SFHEA FRAeS CPhys FInstP LRPS
Fife
Footnotes
IR35, recent reforms to which have been called “more damaging than COVID-19 or Brexit”↩︎