Experience

Thornhvac

• United Kingdom
• Staffing and Recruiting
• 1 - 100 Employee

• Director

  • 2004 - Present

  Thornhvac Ltd is a specialist HVAC recruitment consultancy in the UK. We have jobs for Sales Engineers, Marketing, Technical Engineers and Management roles in leading companies in the following sectors; Air Conditioning, Heating, Ventilation, Refrigeration, and HVAC Controls/ BMS. Thornhvac Ltd is a specialist HVAC recruitment consultancy in the UK. We have jobs for Sales Engineers, Marketing, Technical Engineers and Management roles in leading companies in the following sectors; Air Conditioning, Heating, Ventilation, Refrigeration, and HVAC Controls/ BMS.



Thornhill Consultancy

• Nottingham, England, United Kingdom

• Director

  • Jul 1986 - Jul 2000

  During our time at Helenware, we had been introduced to the extraordinary work of movement analyst Rudolph Laban by a consultant Warren Lamb. Lamb used Laban movement analysis to biometrically profile the personality and decision-making approach of individuals and called it their Action Profile. Helen studied with the Action Profiling community in the UK and the USA while I took a psychology degree at the Open University and after two years’ training we began applying the technique. The purpose was always to help individual managers and teams to understand and leverage the natural decision-making strengths of their Action Profiles and to compensate for any biases or blind-spots. We worked with the senior management teams of a number of leading companies including ICI, British Gas, Powergen and Hydro Electric. We also began to use the growing body of profiling to assess the suitability of managers to roles. In March 2007 we were awarded the CIPD Management Research Prize for a research project to predict sales performance in a joint project with the HR Manager of pharmaceutical manufacturer Merck Serono. Show less



Helenware

• Gainsborough, England, United Kingdom

• Managing Director

  • Sep 1968 - Jul 1986

  My Australian partner Helen made a matching apron and oven gloves as a Christmas present for her mother which were much admired by friends who induced me to try to sell them to a local gift shop. The sale was made and soon afterwards to John Lewis and D H Evans departments in Oxford Street also. For the next almost 20 years we built up a range of Helenware kitchen accessories moving to Gainsborough in Lincolnshire where we became a major employer in the town. We exported a third of our turnover via distributors abroad including Australia, USA, and Europe. Show less



Self Employed

• United States
• 700 & Above Employee

• Jobbing actor

  • Jul 1964 - Jul 1968

  In 1964 I managed to get a grant from my local authority in Liverpool to go to drama school. East 15 Acting School was founded by Margaret Bury one of the players at Joan Littlewood’s Theatre Workshop in Stratford, East 15, London. And after a year I became a jobbing actor. My contemporaries included Billy Murray, Don Beech in the Bill, Kate Williams, Joan Booth in Love they Neighbour and Derrick O’Connor, best known for the South African mercenary Peter Vorstedt in Lethal Weapon 2. My own acting career was rather less illustrious. I played Sgt Watkins in a series of Dr Who in 1968, a policeman PC Ames in the TV series Girl in a Black Bikini in 1967, a Dutch thug in the British Spy thriller Limbo Line with Kate O’Mara and Craig Stevens. There was a small part as a prisoner in Ken Loach’s film Poor Cow. Five years after interviewing Det Sgt Bill Prendergast and his stories that inspired Z Cars I appeared in one myself as Stan, a petty criminal in the episode “Who said anything about the Law?” As with most actors there had to be part time jobs to pay the rent in between acting work which including early mornings packing flowers at Covent Garden, driving instructing and airport runs as a private cabby. Those were different days. Show less



Weekly Newspapers

• Liverpool, England, United Kingdom

• Newspaper Reporter

  • Aug 1962 - Jun 1964

  In August 1961 I started as a trainee reporter with the South Lancashire & Cheshire Press Service, St Helens, Lancashire. I tired of making circuit boards for ships telegraphs and having an interest in writing at school thought I would try to get into journalism. With the help of a neighbour George Cregeen who was Assistant News Editor at the Liverpool Daily Post and Echo I managed to get a trainee position at Terry Smith’s news agency in St Helens. In June 1962 moved to the Waverley Weekly News Highlight - interviewed ex Detective Sgt Bill Prendergast, whose stories of catching criminals in Kirby, Liverpool inspired the ground-breaking TV series Z Cars. The series centred on the mobile uniformed police in the fictional town of Newtown and injected a new element of harsh realism into the image of the police which was not particularly welcomed by them. After a spell at the Dudley Herald I then moved to the Hornchurch, Dagenham, Brentwood and Romford Times in Essex. Highlight of this period was time in the dressing room of the Beatles as they prepared for their show at a cinema in Romford in 1963. By then the Beatles were becoming very popular and we played a game of waving a handkerchief out of their window to the wild cheers of the crowd below queuing up for the show. Show less



Chadburns PT Ltd.

• United Kingdom
• Maritime Transportation
• 1 - 100 Employee

• Engineering Apprentice

  • Jan 1962 - Dec 1962

  1959 to 1962 Apprentice engineer, Chadburns, Bootle, Liverpool makers of the famous ships telegraphs that communicated instructions to the engine room, Full, Half Slow Ahead etc. Memorable event was joining the apprentice’s strike of 1960. Little did we know at the time that it was organised by and helped to bring into prominence the militant Momentum movement. Linkedin year picker only goes back to 1962 which suggests I am past my sell buy date. 1959 to 1962 Apprentice engineer, Chadburns, Bootle, Liverpool makers of the famous ships telegraphs that communicated instructions to the engine room, Full, Half Slow Ahead etc. Memorable event was joining the apprentice’s strike of 1960. Little did we know at the time that it was organised by and helped to bring into prominence the militant Momentum movement. Linkedin year picker only goes back to 1962 which suggests I am past my sell buy date.