I moved to Instow from Kingsbridge in South Devon when I was 8 and started at Bideford Grammar in 1970, which was the same time as John Dare became headmaster. During my time the Grammar School first became co-educational and then Comprehensive.
Consistently untalented at sport I vaguely remember one outing for a second XV match on a bleak Ilfracombe pitch and I would have been an undoubted rugby disappointment to my father Bill Pain.
Qualifications were equally mediocre but I scraped 9 O Levels and 3 A levels. With no interest in university I drifted into the Department of Health and Social Security in Barnstaple before moving to London as an Executive Officer. Boredom led to a spontaneous application to Western Counties Building Society (that well known home of several ex BGS old boys such as Peter Reveley and Bob Harding) as a supernumerary cashier.
This duly led to various branch manager jobs in Cornwall and Devon (mainly because no-one else wanted to relocate so often), before becoming Western Regional Manager and ultimately in charge of Sales for the entire branch network.
Then I moved to Bournemouth in 1999 as Sales Director whilst the Building Society went through various mergers and name changes, before its last manifestation as the Portman which merged with the Nationwide in 2007. I was pretty much the last one to turn off the lights when I took voluntary redundancy in 2010, when the operation relocated to Swindon.
As one of the last but one intake of boys into the Grammar School, I suspect that statistically I might also end up being one of the last members of the Old Boys!
I’m married to Laura and have been happily retired since 2010, living just outside Blandford Forum in Dorset
