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to teach their students about them.

Upon my return to the Blackbush School, I continued my task of sorting through the confusion of materials, trying to bring order to the chaos. This was no small undertaking so I asked for an assistant and was given an apprentice called Collin. Colin was great and between us we spent a week sorting out tons of books papers photos slides and data! What I didn’t get through in work time I took home to sort! We had slides all over the dining room table, on the chairs, the window ledges everywhere! But before I could get organised I was informed that I was booked to attend three separate schools in Michigan USA within a few days I was on my way flying to the States.

Naturally I took my camera and video equipment with it and me helped me in no uncertain manner. I made video shots of everything I saw much to the surprise of my American colleagues they had never seen a video camera. It certainly did help me, for example when I was shown how a Fluid Converter or Gearbox being stripped and rebuilt I recorded the whole process. Nobody seemed to understand what I was doing but they presumed I had a cine film, which had normal film in it which needed to be developed.

They just could not understand how I could replay it I had not brought a TV with me I could not demonstrate it to them for their own 1000 line receivers would not scan to my meagre 405 line recorder. I managed to record over three hours of tape during the trip.

I replayed the recording to myself over and over again upon my return to the U.K. and soon knew everything I wanted about the Torque Converters and other machines.

Two weeks after my return from Michigan I was to take my first school in Blackbush. I had a class of over forty pupils plus all the heads of departments from the Camberley factory. The students came from all over Europe. I was on my own and feeling daunted, this was to be my day of reckoning.

But this new training supervisor had some tricks up his sleeve! I scrapped the slides except a small number about the company to these I added a “NUDE” slide about half way through, I gave no explanation other then to give the impression it was there by mistake! In reality I had shown it as a way to ensure that no student fell asleep! It was a success; they couldn’t take their eyes off the screen after that!

The School books which I issued to the students only contained drawings of the machines or machine parts and I enabled the students to fill in further details as I showed them on my overhead projector. This helped those from abroad that did not speak English for they could write these details in their own language.

For the practical sessions I brought in my own video camera and a television from home. Mounting the camera on a stand over my shoulder, I was able to demonstrate what I was doing inside the gearbox. Sometimes I was not sure myself just how it was done but Colin, my apprentice, was at hand and he demonstrated while I adjusted the camera so it could be viewed on the screen. It worked most professionally.

After the demonstration the students had to strip down and rebuild similar gearboxes while Colin and I supervised and assisted them. They were so surprised when I showed them on the TV screen just how some fitting was carried out for they did not realise I had been recording the whole demonstration. By showing short runs over and over again everyone understood what was required. My first school was such a success

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