1 ‘A proper job’ A career in computing was not planned. I had worked towards joining the (UK) Royal Navy, as a lad attending the Skinners’ School in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, in the 1950s. I was a member of the school cadet corps, and as a 16-year-old I had signed up to the school and university branch of the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve. I was called for service in 1956 while still at school, and only escaped going to war when the captain of HMS Ocean, on his way to the Suez engagement, realised he had schoolchildren on board. We were unloaded onto HMS Vanguard, the only battleship in the British fleet, and kept in a secure environment for two weeks, as Prime Minister Anthony Eden had not publicly declared that he was sending gunboats to Egypt. At the time, Australian Prime Minister Robert Menzies was negotiating for a peaceful resolution to the crisis. The experience of being aboard the Vanguard further whetted my ambition to be a sailor. My ambition was partly satisfied when in 1958 I was offered a place, and officer training, in the navy. My dad had served in the Royal Air Force during World War II, qualifying as a codes and cyphers specialist; he had to sign my application. He was, however, loathe to sign the mandatory 29-year service agreement, asking what would I do when I demobilised as a 47-year-old lieutenant commander. He suggested I undertake a university course and then decide if I felt the same way. With the study I had taken to get into the navy, I was able to procure a place at the University of Leeds, studying civil engineering. I thoroughly enjoyed my time at Leeds, but was unsure about spending the rest of my life in Wellington boots in and around building sites. 1 ALSO INNOVatoRS Figure 1.1: Schoolboy and sailor, Royal Naval Reserve service on HMS Zest, 1957. Source: Author’s collection . 2 1 . ‘A PROPER JOb’ ‘Grow up, son. Get a proper job, the same as everyone else.’ That was mum and dad’s resolution to my uncertainty when I arrived home at Tunbridge Wells in 1961, after three years at the University of Leeds, with a shiny new civil engineering BSc and an understanding of the design of hyperparabolic shells. I also had a girlfriend, Audrey, who I hoped would be my wife. I had fulfilled the two principal ambitions I took to the North of England as an undergraduate. At Leeds I had also taken the coursework of a new curriculum BSc (Econ.) in business management and I had passed these final examinations in addition to the degree course — not well, but passed. What to do next? I had spoken to the faculties of medicine and law at Leeds and made enquiries of Kent County Council for an extension of my education grants. I was keen but unrealistic in thinking that events would let me drift into continuing my student lifestyle. It was not to be. That one sensible conversation with mum and dad had me back in the real world. What was a proper job? I targeted Friday’s Daily Telegraph employment pages and responded to four generic advertisements that were seeking ‘an ambitious graduate’. I was invited to two interviews. IBM was looking for trainee salesmen. At the time, IBM was the world’s largest information technology company, with 80 per cent of the market of what was then called ‘electronic data processing’. IBM had placed three of the advertisements I had answered, with slight variances in the text and reply addresses, and was not offended that I had picked it out more than once. Nothing was said about my multiple applications when I attended IBM’s office in London’s Wigmore Street for an interview. I was shown into a dingy little cubicle where an IBM aptitude test and answer paper awaited me. This was unexpected, but I was naively confident. It was a bright, sunny day outside and beams of sunlight cut through grimy windows, showing the dust in the Soho air. This diffusion of sunlight highlighted that the original aptitude test booklet had been previously completed by another candidate — the pencil indentations were obvious. I tried to ignore that I had answers in front of me and started off with my own responses on the answer paper. ‘This is stupid,’ I thought. I was getting the same answers as my predecessor. So I copied out those answers, completed the sections that were unanswered, and spent some time checking my answers. I rang the bell for attention as the clerk had asked me to do when I was invited to take the test. 3 ALSO INNOVatoRS The clerk arrived and was quite concerned. ‘Can’t you do it?’ ‘Well I have finished and checked the answers.’ She countered: ‘You should not have finished this quickly. The HR manager is still interviewing another candidate. You’ll have to wait. I’ll process the test, but you will not be able to see him for another 23 minutes. Please wait here.’ She brought me a newspaper to read. After precisely 23 minutes she collected me, and I went for my interview with the HR manager, who was big, sweating, and smarmy. He got up from behind his desk. ‘My name is Godsland; whenever you think of me, you will think of heaven.’ A silent ‘Yuk — this guy is a real creep.’ The interview was short. IBM’s assessment of me was that I was ‘probably unemployable in a commercial sense’. Mr Godsland counselled that the aptitude test analysis showed that I was probably more suited to academia as a career. Undeterred, I attended an interview at the National Trade Press (NTP) in Drury Lane and was interviewed by Dai Watkins, a young Welshman with a lived-in face. He was a very keen Welshman. Many are, it’s a national trait. Dai explained that he had joined NTP — the trade and technical publications arm of the Daily Mirror Group — straight from the London School of Economics as an economist and statistician. He had outgrown the job, and I was being interviewed as a potential chief statistician and economist to replace him. He was leaving to set up his own marketing consultancy. There was something familiar about Dai Watkins. I let him continue to enthusiastically explain the market research aspects of the job, particularly regarding new journals in the emerging technical industries of the early 1960s. Then I remembered: I had played rugby the previous Saturday for the Blackheath Rugby Club Second XV in a trial game at the Rectory Fields. Dai had played on the right wing; I had played on the left wing. He remembered me when I made him aware of the connection. In no 4 1 . ‘A PROPER JOb’ time at all I was in front of the NTP managing director, S. Chas Burt, and Dai was recommending me as a suitable candidate for the job. Mr Burt agreed with him, and I negotiated an annual salary of £850 — £50 more than I had heard any of my pals getting as civil engineers. That was OK. The next day I had a telephone call at home from Mr Burt. ‘How do you feel about attending an introduction to data processing course at IBM, starting Monday of next week?’ Of course, I had to agree to that. I was back at the IBM Wigmore Street office, but did not see Mr Godsland during the four weeks of attendance at the course. It was a good course, with about 20 participants, all male, mostly accountants. We were taught to use the IBM Series 3000 system hardware and how to program the plugboard system. We learned to program the system using wires plugged into a control panel to carry electrical signals around and through the equipment, rather like the old-fashioned telephone operator control panel. A full board required a cover to stop wires being accidentally knocked out. Changing a program could be a nightmare, feeling your way through to the backplane and several inches of cables. Figure 1.2: A small plugboard with not too many connections made. Source: Wikipedia Commons . The Series 3000 was a punch-card oriented system, with the choice of an 80- or 90-column card. We learned on a 90-column card system. The system was, at that time, an unannounced IBM product from IBM Germany. The course material was all very new to me. We had done some 5 ALSO INNOVatoRS theoretical programming at the University of Leeds, writing basic routines on coding pads, verifying instructions as well as we were able after they had been punched into paper tape, and reading our output as produced on the computing department’s Ferranti Pegasus system, which had been installed in 1957. As civil engineers, our university computer experience consisted of three lectures and the chance to write and run a simple test program using the Fortran programming language. Figure 1.3: The University of Leeds Ferranti Pegasus as installed in 1957. Source: Author’s collection . The Series 3000 course was certainly a hands-on experience. The lady teacher was excellent and very patient in explaining business processes to me, as I was the only person attending the class without business experience. It was all going well until, at the end of the third week, it was announced to the class that IBM Armonk (the IBM headquarters in the US) had cancelled the IBM 3000 system and would instead extend the life of the IBM 420 Alphabetical Accounting Machine in the UK.