Kathy

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I somehow feel a great affinity with pigs.

My offspring even give me pigs for Christmas

Perhaps I have picked up something from the pigs' innards that regularly figured in the teaching of Biology at school, or is it that I like eating too much ??

I did a degree in Biology at Birmingham, where I met Roland. We married in 1969 and I worked in a research unit in the Medical School until David was born in 1972. I was a full-time Mum, with Joanna born in 1974, as were all the other Mums I knew. I was involved in local W.I. singing and drama, and making ends meet (fairly challenging at the time).

I was various characters including the Jumbly Girl and a yellow bird in "The Owl and the Pussycat"in the mid 80's! I also made some of the costumes.

Living microscopic organisms like this were shown on the Big Screen magnified 20,000 times!

Since 1983 I worked as a school Lab. Technician, part-time and then more or less full-time but only term-time. I was at a local High School since 1988 as the Biology specialist technician and was an expert in the grotty things in life! I also usefully became adept at technical and IT stuff, a welcome break from endless spit and guts. I enjoyed opportunities to play with the hi-tech equipment and provided the WOW! factor with combination of microscope and video projector, also impressing parents on Open Evening with the unseen life all around us, magnified x 20,000 on screen. How things have moved on since my first encounters with computers at the University, when they had flashing lights, whirring tape reels and took up a whole room. I retired in 2007.

Since 1984 I was lucky enough to sing with the City of Birmingham Symphony Chorus - if I'd known what I was taking on I would probably have chickened out. It was a wonderful but expensive and time-consuming hobby involving up to 25 concerts a year all over England and Wales with sometimes 100 rehearsal calls - driving to Birmingham and back is a round trip of 36 miles. I have made over 25 recordings, been on several Proms but always seemed to end up at the back when we appeared on telly. I have also sung on trips to Holland, Belgium, Spain, Helsinki, France, Hong Kong, Berlin and Vienna but trips to Saltzburg, Leipzig, USA and Sydney eluded me - wrong timing. Family holidays and work have always taken precedence. I made up for this in May 2002 with a 3rd visit to Vienna to record Beethoven 9 with the wonderful Simon Rattle (he was as wonderful to work with as they all say and tremendous fun) in the Musikverein with the Vienna Philarmonic. About as good as it will ever get. Mind you, Helsinki in January 2004, where we gave the first Finnish performance of the Dream of Gerontius with Sakari Oramo and the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra was also rather good!
After re-auditioning every year after a Certain Age I sadly had to retire at the end of 2011.

CBSC at the opening concert of Symphony Hall, Birmingham in 1992
CBSO with Simon Rattle.
I am at the back on the left. It is the most wonderful place to be.

Click on the picture for a bigger view, then use the Back button to return to this page.

See Music page for comments on Vienna trip, May 2002
Click on this link.

I was the main flower gardener and consultant on vegetables but have been sidelined on the latter. When I retired I bought a better piano - one with headphones so no-one can hear my rusty efforts. The WI Choir's occasional reunion provides me with an opportunity to feel quite young!
I also credit myself with having trained Roland in a lot of his IT skills but now he has caught me up there as well. I'm still the only one who can knit ......

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