Liz's Biography - School

I attended Mayfield School in Bexhill, East Sussex from the age of 3 to the age of 5. It was run by two unmarried sisters, Kathleen (Kuggie) and Louie Leigh. They had a large house - half was the school and half was where they lived. My mother and I lived with them from 1964 to 1971, so even after I "left" Mayfield and went to school elsewhere, I still lived there.

They closed the school some time in the 1970s, but continued to live in the house until Kathleen's death in the late 1980s. Louie then sold the house and moved to a retirement home, and died a short while later. The house, on 3/4 of an acre, was bought by a developer who knocked it down, and divided it into three plots before building new houses. I haven't been back to Bexhill since Louie's funeral, so I have no idea what it looks like now!

St Anne's was a little school just around the block from Mayfield, so many who left Mayfield went on there. Again, it was run by a handful of unmarried elderly women, and took children between the ages of 5 and 7. A converted house smaller than Mayfield, it somehow managed to squeeze us all in.

My biggest memory here was of bringing a clown hat to wear for some class project, which my mother had made. However, no-one else's parents had remembered to make anything for their children to wear, so I was the only one. I don't even remember why I needed it!

This was an Anglican convent school where I spent most of my education - from the age of 7 to O-levels at the age of 16. It was divided into the Junior School (Stonecourt) and the Senior School (Baldslow), which were seperated by a few miles within St Leonards (near Hastings, East Sussex).

Both were all-girls schools, apart from a few boys in the Kindergarten. Both were housed in old, possibly historic buildings on large grounds. Stonecourt had the "soft court" (a grassy, flat playing area surrounded by woodland and reached via some treacherous steps), and the "hard court" (an asphalt playing area surrounded by the new and old school buildings). Baldslow had a quarter mile grass track surrounding the lacrosse field, several tennis courts, a small and chilly swimming pool, a chapel, a gym, several pre-fab classrooms to supplement the main building, and later on a brand-new boarding house and dining room - St Anne's.

The school closed the sixth form the year I took my O-levels and closed its doors for good in the early 1990s. I think a lack of any old girls going on to become nuns meant the convent became non-viable! The most famous old girl is Joanna Lumley (of The Avengers and Absolutely Fabulous) who was there well before my time.

My mother recently found this second form class photo from 1971 - I don't think I've changed much... There are more photos of St Mary's in my photo section.

O-Level Results:

Grade "A"

Maths, Physics-with-Chemistry

Grade "B"

English Language, French, Physics, Religious Studies

Grade "C"

Chemistry

Grade "D"

Geography, Latin, English Literature

Grade "U"

History

I went on to take my A-Levels at Kelly College in Tavistock, Devon - my father's old school. As an all-boys school that had recently started to take a few girls in the sixth form, this was something of a culture shock! I was also a boarder, living away from home for the first time. Kelly was also a bunch of historic buildings on expansive grounds, supplemented by modern buildings to house the overflow.

In my last year, a new Olympic-sized swimming pool brought us fame in the form of Sharron Davies, Olympic gold medal swimmer whose father was hired as a swimming coach in return for his daughter's tuition. The BBC even came and made a documentary about Sharron (in which I made my first and last TV appearance - my ear was visible during a close-up shot of Sharron singing in chapel).

I took Maths (B), Physics (B) and French (C) A-Levels, as well as General Studies (D) and Physics (A) AO-Levels. Mike Loader decided I should also attempt Physics S-Level, but I ended up with a U. I think it was because I made a mistake in the calculation of the length of a year from first principles - a calculation I had done flawlessly on prior occasions. S-Level was only three questions, so getting one entirely wrong was not a good sign.

Although my social circle was almost entirely composed of the girls in my year, I have recently got in touch with several of the boys I had classes with - see my schoolfriends page.

I successfully got into Bath University to read Engineering with French - my first choice. I made several friends among my lecturers and fellow students, and you can read about them on my university friends page. I recently found this graduation photo archived on the Bath University web site, and as you can see, I haven't changed a bit since 1983 ... right?

I graduated with a 2(ii). I was hoping for a 2(i) but as I realized eventually, engineering wasn't something for which I had a natural bent. However, it did give me my first real exposure to computer usage, for which I am very grateful. All my final year projects were computer-based, rather than practical. Even our joint design project, a system for allowing trucks to load and unload containers without the aid of external cranes or hoists, gave me the opportunity to shine by creating a computer animation of the moverment of the integral arms as the container was unloaded, then loaded, then unloaded, then loaded, then...

In 1988, I was seconded by the Rover Group to work in the Advanced Technology Center at Warwick University, a collaboration between academia and industry where people from both sides worked together on industry projects while earning research degrees. My project concerned the analysis and predication of engine cooling and heating and air conditioning systems in passenger vehicles, and resulted in a FORTRAN program called "VESHFLOW". In 1991, my supervisor grudgingly agreed I'd done enough work to merit a MSc. in Engineering, and that heralded the end of my academic career.

I don't know if my masters degree did anything for my career, but being at Warwick did allow me my first taste of the internet. I first discovered newsgroups (by connecting to the main campus server to check email and discovering the previous session was still active, and open in a usenet reading state) and then quickly went on to discover MUDs, MUSHes and the rest of the culture. I have noticed that many of the people I worked with at Warwick are still there, doing essentially the same research. However, I haven't added a Warwick University section to my University Friends page yet.