Griffen 2014

6 Members’ News MEMB E R S ’ NEWS John Ottiker (1931) was born in Panama in 1914. His father was involved in building the Canal. He was a boarder at Llandaff Cathedral School and from there went to St Dunstan’s Prep School in West Worthing. John entered Abingdon in 1929 but had to leave at the end of 1931 due to the Great Depression. He moved to Peru in 1932 and (apart from WWII) has lived there ever since. David Greenman (1949) spent his entire career in Health Service laboratories. He qualified in bacteriology in Oxford and haematology in Cardiff. For his National Service, he was sent to Hong Kong, there having experience with malaria and with gut parasites in the local population. In Cardiff promotion came three times. He was involved with the department’s research into iron metabolism. Many papers were published. He also made contributions in immunology, tissue typing and haematinics. Much of his career in Cardiff was spent running the routine laboratory. His wife is a medical scientist, the two 1930–1939 Photography: Peter Greenland 1940–1949 1950–1959 children, an IT consultant and an MPharm. John McMahon (1942) retired in 1990 after 48 years in the motor industry. After serving a six-year engineering apprenticeship in Oxford, he joined Morris Motors Service Technical Department. In 1957 he set up, with a colleague, a service school for American car distributors in New York. He also travelled across Canada solving transmission problems. He transferred to the sales division in 1962 which in 1967 involved moving nearer to the new headquarters in Birmingham with his wife and two sons. On retirement, John was Used Vehicle Sales Manager for the Rover Group. He is now 88 years old and enjoying a busy life. Arnold Robinson (1940) joined the RAF as a Flight Sergeant Navigator in Transport Command. After the war he trained as a sanitary inspector and finally as an environmental inspector. On retirement, he qualified as a glider pilot. Arnold will celebrate his 90th birthday in May 2014. Michael Blythe (1958) has now retired from a senior executive position in the oil industry having looked for and developed oil fields in Indonesia, Nigeria and Gabon. It is his intention to return home to the UK within the next six months. Stephen ‘Mike’ Crawley (1954) went straight from 6th Form into National Service basic training at RA Oswestry. Terry Lay (1954), a great friend at school, went in on the same intake. Mike ended up in Germany while Terry got a home posting. Mike went to the College of St Mark & St John, Chelsea, and studied Geo- Physics / Teacher’s Cert. He started teaching in Essex and then became a Department Head at Dagenham Priory Comprehensive. He finished his last 14 years as Senior Teacher at Eastbrook Comprehensive, Dagenham. Mike retired to Sussex in 1994 and pursued his interests in classic MGs, local politics and community work. He married Sheila in 1961, has two sons, one daughter, six granddaughters, one grandson and one great grandson. Geoffrey Crockford (1952) graduated from London University (QMC) in 1958 and joined a Medical Research Council Unit based in the Department of Human Anatomy, Oxford. For recreation he helped to found the Abingdon Boat Club. However, rowing became too demanding so Geoffrey joined the Oxford Underwater Research Group and helped to make one of the first underwater feature films shot in the UK for the BBC. The MRC Unit then moved to the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. In 1970 he transferred to the university staff to run the first MSc course in the country on environmental hygiene at the LSH & TM. Eventually he headed the Department of Occupational Health. Leaving the University in 1988, he became a consultant in