I attended Bideford Grammar School 1971-76 having moved on from Great Torrington primary school following my three older brothers who all attended BGS, Dennis (1956-62), Frank (1961–66) and Paul (1971-1974).
I was in the last all boy intake in September 1971 which saw 60 boys split into two classes A and B with those with surnames starting with letters A to L in Class A and M to Z in class B. With my name I was in class B. In September 1972 girls were introduced across all ages but as there were only six girls in our age group they were all placed in class A and the boys with surnames beginning with L moved into class B to even the numbers. This left our class, B, as the last all boy class in the school and this remained true until we left in July 1976.
I enjoyed my time at BGS but the turmoil of the merging of the school with the Geneva Place School in 1975-76 and its effect on the 1976 exam period resulted in myself and majority of others in my year rejecting the sixth form and decamping to North Devon College. I took a business diploma at NDC before studying law at Wolverhampton graduating in 1981 and then a year at Chester College of Law. I then worked for law agencies mostly in company formation and reconstruction in London for 11 years before moving into law publishing with Sweet & Maxwell, now part of Thomson Reuters. I qualified as an associate (ACIS) of the Chartered Institute of Secretaries and Administrators in 1991 (now renamed the Chartered Institute of Governance – hence ACG).
With Thomson Reuters I have been involved in various paper and online publishing projects including Direct.Gov and the Financial Services Handbook. I am now mainly concerned with keeping various legal texts up to date with developments in intellectual property, pensions, insolvency, company and commercial law.
