1940s Class notes

My wife died in winter 2012. I am reasonably well and I walk every day, but speed and distance seem to be more difficult. In our village, we have another graduate from Birmingham.

I was at Birmingham from 1942-44 as Nanette Gregg. I was then called up at the age of 20 to work at Bletchley Park. I graduated in 1945 with an Honours Degree in English (unclassified).

I have lived in New Zealand since 1952, although I did work for about four years in the UK after leaving Birmingham, in diesel engine development at the English Electric. No doubt this closed years ago. I worked on hydro dam construction and in the logging industry in NZ. I have been retired for over 20 years now.

I have visited Birmingham once since and I remember Birmingham with affection. Professor Mucklow was my Professor.

I am 87 and have been in hospital after food started going into my left lung, pneumonia, and then having a peg fitted in my stomach for direct feeding.

Sir Godfrey Hounsfield (Nobel Laureate), FRS, and Dr IR Young, FRS, both reported to me. Dr EW Williams, Director of Materials & Methods Research, was very talented and also a very cheerful and amusing fellow Director. W Percival DSc was an impressively capable consultant member of staff.

Our Family Tree © A.G. Blay, 2006. Possible Blay Origins & The Blay Tree. At present, the earliest Blay ancestors which I have identified and linked into the tree are my great-great-grandparents,

Richard Blay (ID46) and his wife, Charlotte (ID47) who, in the first half of the 19th century, lived in Clifton Campville, a village lying about five miles N.E. of Tamworth in Staffordshire. The 1841 census record for the village reveals that they were both born around 1770 but not in Staffordshire. In the 1841 records, the forms asked only for a yes/no answer to the question 'Born in County?'. Sadly, at present, this means that I do not know where they were born or where they were married. It is to be noted that Clifton Campville is close to the borders with Warwickshire, Derbyshire and Leicestershire, so they may well have come from nearby. The border with Derbyshire is less than a mile north of Clifton Campville, the nearby village of Netherseale was in Leicestershire until 1897, and the border with Warwickshire passed through Tamworth. The four counties meet somewhere in the region of No Man's Heath near to Clifton Campville.

My elder son Philip took his degree at Birmingham, and my younger son took his at Coventry.

My Birmingham days are long past and I have been enjoying retirement for 20 years. I'm managing to travel worldwide, so life has been interesting.