Don was born in London, England in 1927. He was educated at Sir Walter St John's School in Battersea from 1935 until the start of World War 2, and then was evacuated with the school to the town of Godalming in Surrey. After taking General Schools Certificate in 1943, he left school and started an apprenticeship at Hawker Aircraft Limited, working on all aircraft from the Hurricane to the Sea Fury in 1948. He then joined the design office at Hawkers as a stressman (Structures Engineer). During his time at Hawkers he took classes at the Kingston Technical College (later to become the University of Kingston-upon-Thames) getting sufficient qualification to become an Associate Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society, as well as a Member of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.

In 1952 he immigrated to Montreal, Canada, and joined the design office of Canadair Ltd, as an engineer in the structures department. He stayed at Canadair for 23 years with a break of nearly a year when he was in England in the Sauders-Roe Structures Department. During this time not only did he work on the design of aircraft, but also the other products that Canadair produced. These products were considerably varied & included; Curtain-wall for buildings; ground effect machines; tracked vehicles; "Hot-structures"; Environment control devices & Pilotless reconnaissance drones.

Don joined the Canadian Govenment in 1975 as a structures engineer in the airworthiness division the Canadian Department of Transport, and for the next six years worked on the approval of all new aircraft & balloon types that came on the Canadian register. In 1981, he changed his speciality and for a short time became a computer programer for the Maritime section of the Department of National Defence, and later when the position came open at the Atomic Energy Control Board. There he worked until his retirement in 1993. He carried on at the AECB for another three years after initial retirement doing half time on contracts and at the age of 70 fully retired.

He has done a fair amount of travelling, both for his work and for pleasure, but only in the northern hemisphere. Since retirement he has written a biography, developed and sold a computer program for the transport of radioactive materials to the DND and generally enjoyed reading, computing and the many other activities of retirement.

My articles on the previous page are are in acrobat format.