Disaster suddenly struck and I took custody of both children, a baby and a two-year-old. Although we had been attending a brethren assemble and I was now a single dad they deserted us, so I looked after the children myself putting them into a nursery while I continued to work during the day but all attempts at finding a suitable housekeeper proved totally unsatisfactory. I obviously needed to find a more suitable arrangement and teaching seemed an obvious solution in that my working hours and school holidays would more or less coincide. English Electric and the General Electric Company were merging, and I was able to take voluntary redundancy and study full-time for a Post Graduate Certificate in Education with a view to teaching in the Further and Higher Education sector, while my now ex. in-laws stepped into the breach in helping me take care of my young family while I devoted myself to full-time study. They proved to be a Godsend and were simply invaluable.
Generally, I enjoyed my course work and more especially the teaching practice at a Technical College whose students were mainly mining apprentices. Upon graduation I sold the Stafford house and took up a lectureship in Northamptonshire teaching mainly steel industry apprentices and a variety of courses at all levels well within my technical qualifications and practical experience. I already had experience with computer main frames and programming so when transistors became available, followed by large scale integration of electronic circuitry and microprocessors in particular I was in the fortunate position of having the experience of moving my department forward to meet the changing technological needs of local industry. The college was also fortunate enough to obtain a large grant for equipment through the European Union enabling me to set up a modern Electronic and Computing facility, so phasing out some of the more traditional heavy current courses and generally moving towards light current engineering. In the event this proved to be most beneficial to the area and the college in particular in that the Corby steel works closed making redundant many heavy current electrical engineering personnel who required retraining in the new technology of micro-electronics. For me too this opened up an opportunity to eventually move on and back into industry when our youngest child was able to leave home to pursue advanced studies in fine arts.
At the beginning of my twelve-year stint of teaching I was fortunate enough to be able to build a house in a small village in the smallest county of England, Rutland. My youngest child was just five and started school in the nearest town of Uppingham.
It was shortly after this that I met a ward sister at a local hospital, and we eventually married. My family of two suddenly grew to four boys whose ages all fell within a space of two years.
Within some twelve to eighteen months of moving into my new house and the sudden increase in family, I decided to enlarge the house myself which, together with a heavy teaching load and other activities, proved to be a very busy time for me, more especially so since I subsequently enrolled with the Open University reading for a bachelor’s degree in science and technology and graduated in three years.
The village we lived in had nothing going on for the youth so, together with another teacher, we started a youth group meeting in the village reading rooms. This seemed such a success that so many younger children wished to join that two groups were eventually formed, with the help of a young farmer, catering for children between the ages of eight to eighteen. The activities engaged in ranged from bicycle maintenance to canoeing. I was also involved with outward bound courses, at the college I was teaching at, which involved me in such extracurricular activities such as trekking, pot holing, rock climbing, sailing and generally preparing groups of eighteen-year-old boys for an overseas expedition.
Although my wife and I were Christians we were not regularly attending church, but our children were enrolled at a Church of England school in Uppingham, the nearest town. The headmaster of the school was a Methodist and through his encouragement we started to attend the Methodist church enabling our children to attend Sunday school. I think this was maybe the beginning of the end of a rather dry period in our Christian lives following the break-up of our respective marriages. The arrival of a new vicar as the rector of our village church also proved to be a significant milestone in our life. Both he and his wife were slightly older than we were, but my wife became friends with his and she suggested that my wife took confirmation classes since during student days she always took communion with the blessing of her local vicar although she had not been confirmed. The upshot of this was that one day the vicar introduced himself and invited me to also consider being confirmed. After some consideration I decided to attend the next course. When the second week of the course was due to start the vicar said that he was unable to teach it and would I do so. I agreed and in fact taught the rest of the course to a group of some six or so other students. I am not sure if this was contrived in some way, but I do sometime wonder if anyone else has actually taught his own confirmation class!
Our local church bells had not been rung for some thirty years but a well know national bell ringer persuaded the vicar to have them restored, a new treble added, and bell-ringing lessons commenced for village locals. We joined in this venture and became a family of campanologists!
We also started groups for both Christian men and women and attended a bible study home group, a round trip of sixty miles, which became the highlight of the week. Quite were all the energy came from for all our various activities remains somewhat of a mystery but eventually the Lord challenged me to spend more quality time with Him. I agreed and asked what He had in mind. It transpired that His mind was that I should spend time each morning doing bible study. I would usually get up each morning around eight and commence lectures around nine so I thought I could get up half an hour earlier and devote that to study but I had the distinct impression that this was not earlier enough so eventually I settled on starting at six o’clock. There was one problem however and that was could I wake up on time, so the night before the morning I had agreed with the Lord I would start I asked Him to wake me. Two minutes to six I was awakened, went downstairs, made a cup of tea and entered my study some twenty minutes past six only to realise that I had agreed on starting at six, so the next morning I forwent the tea and started on time. These times proved equally both challenging and quite a blessing and well worth the loss of a couple of hours sleep!