Welcome to Bob Cory
This is now my private website and all my business interests are at Armstrong Brooks Group
And this is where I live - shot in the rain from a Hughes 500 as we came in to land (as you do)
My main interests are as in the navigation block above. By background I have a degree in Mathematical Physics from Birmingham University (at Edgbaston).
Background
No, I wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth but nor was I born in the gutter
My dad was a prison officer who left school at fourteen and as kids there was never any surplus money but my parents were amazing people who ensured we had a good childhood. Like most people of that era, we never went to restaurants or rode in taxis. Holidays were spent at my grandad's place - he owned a village bakers and was reasonably well off - Tom Coombs & Sons of Milborne Port, Somerset.
My dad's father, William Cory, was also born in Milborne Port but led a varied and restless life. He was the ship's carpenter on board Fridtjof Nansen's ship when my father was born and my dad was lumbered with the name Fridtjof Cory, as a direct result. He was always known as Fritz Cory - not a great asset during World War II
William Cory used to smuggle diamonds from Cape Town to Amsterdam for £100 a trip (about two years wages for a carpenter). Not to mention gold - I still have a bag of gold dust he gave my dad. When he finally stopped wandering around the world he came back to his wife (who was about 30 years younger than him) and his 5 kids and never smiled again.
He built a row of houses in a place that everybody told him was a mistake (it was - they were sliding down the hill). A miserable old bastard who would disagree with people as a matter of principle, according to my father. I know, I know.
The local squire offered to privately educate my father as he was an exceptional child but William Cory told the squire to fuck off.
My parent both worked night and day - my dad had a garden and an allotment, kept chickens and bees, played the piano, grew fruit and vegetables (some flowers but mostly food), did wood carving and read Charles Dickens late at night (yes, really, every night for an hour or so). We never had a TV as they felt that it was a waste of time (too right). But we would listen to Beyond Our Ken and laugh. Why, I have no idea. I have never heard anything less funny when I listen to recordings (apart from Dad's Army and Billy Connolly of course)
My mum cooked, cleaned, ironed, sewed, knitted, bottled fruit and never stopped doing stuff. We lived in a pre-fab until I was 11 at which point we moved to Hull and lived in a real house (behind the prison wall on Southcoates Lane). I went to Riley Technical High School where I won the school prize for the best "O" Levels and then we moved to Wetherby where I won the school prize for the best "A" levels. Then on to Birmingham University followed by English Electric LEO Marconi in Kidsgrove.
The LEO stood for Lyons Electronic Office - yes, Lyons Corner House Cafes built computers to do all of their accounting. The LEO 1 computer was still in operation at that time and I learned to program on a KDF9 main frame.
At the age of 26 I was in charge of the Northern, Midland and Western Stock-Exchange computer system which was a nightmare project. Two previous people who had tried to bring it under control had both had nervous breakdowns. It was an horrific shambles but after a year or so I had tamed it and taken it through decimalisation (when we changed from pounds, shillings and pence to the current system). Subsequent to that it was taken over by the stock-exchange and became NMW Computers Plc .
At that point, my company offered me, at the age of 28, a job in charge of all the data processing for Marks & Spencer. I turned that down as I saw it as a demotion. Meanwhile, I had read a book explaining that you could become a millionaire in the property business. So I left and did that instead.
Modified on 13/03/2020 at 10:29:39 by Bob Cory - 'wavering' on Pprune and Pistonheads