Visiting with the Rotarians 1960 - 2025
At HIRC according to Google so I was advised by Dr E my sponser I guess I shall have to call him, the partner of a cousin of my wife's.
To be on the safe side I searched my old wallets for an old business card when among the many I decided to take one of the last I used to when I styled myself ****** **** CSci CChem FRSC standing for Chartered Scientist, Chartered Chemist, and Fellow of the Royal (of The United Kingdom) Society of Chemistry of Konsultancy****, the name of my Consultancy which operated from 2004 11 29 the Monday of the first week of what should have been my retirement upon reaching 65. Together with a photograph, a self portrait when I still had dark hair, now turned grey in the intervening almost 20 years: and on the reverse side the same name but styling himself Chairman, Working Group of Cellulose Casing Manufacturers, based in Bruxelles, Belgium, as the headquarters of C.I.P.C.E.L. (Comite International de la Pellicule Cellulosique).
If ever I had wished to display a flair for anything it was at this point in my career, having one of Britains most successful Graphic Arts Company's Creative Director for a nephew -in-law and long time hill climbing partner, set the tone with the design of my business card, something he did without a fee, in a two tone colour scheme I had registered with the Finnish Chamber of Commerce. The people my colleagues in this committee all ppl I had met elsewhere either directly as Customers in the USA or in sister companies in Europe when I was a Paper Supplier, or through the Patent Courts, and Court of International Trade in New York City to take on competitors in battles against the US Customs Service, likewise, since becoming like they were, producers, even being an employee of the same company who attended our meetings in Brussels as a non competitive Company who shared a similar technology, and finally one of the members who my parent company had bought out such was their success. A curiosity also for being an original English speaking Englishman who had settled in Finland to become a Finnish speaking Scandinavian, in some ways being a fish out of water..!?
That is from being a young man in the summer of 1960, aged 20 1/2, when I was invited to attend my first Rotary Club meeting in Kuusankoski, to tell the gathering something of the background to my applying for work in the Central Laboratory of Oy Kymene Ab in Kuusankoski.
Until, quite old, I had never really contemplated attending another Rotary Club meeting, despite an offer having been made some years earlier by this same person, Dr E.
...to be continued in the light of the up-coming meeting?
That the meeting went well was perhaps to be expected: having come a long way since that summer of 1960, fresh out of my job as a Laboratory Assistant, 5 years since leaving school to work at one of the town's 25 Paper Mills. My brother, Jim, starting his career as a Fitter at Walmesles (Bury) Ltd, one of whose Paper Machines was still in operation in 1960, in Kymin Oy's Paper Mills, producing the very popular "Konsepti Paperi" with ruled lines left to right of the sheet and with the same spacing up and down, a light print for all manner of concepts. When I returned home I met Mr Sedgewick who lived across the same street in Bury, the man who had commisioned this machine in 1936, very interested to chat about Finland and Kuusankoski...
My horizons got be raised higher working as a "student" of a University, play-acting that is, aside from coming clean before the ppl of the Rotary Club, when I told my courses in Chemistry, Physics, and Mathematics, were by virtue of part-time day-release courses conducted on behalf of my employer.
Building a career which then included Pulping Processes, based on the Sulphite and Sulphate methods. Then upon my return, working as a bench Chemist's assistant, developing Basic and Vat Dye formulations, using reaction vessels and reflux condensors on a daily basis, my most interesting project preparing copper phthalocyanine pigments in a fume cupboard of a laboratory coloured "Monastral Blue", a long long way from the physics-based paper making at which I began my career. Then dipping my toe into Transparent Paper (i.e. Cellophane Film) manufacture to stay more with Chemistry than Physics, in between times returning to Kuusankoski for the summers and staying over a couple of winters.
Finally returning to UK for a Research and Development job with Wiggins Teape in the executive belt around London in Buckinghamshire in the town of Beaconsfield with, my "final" Higher National Chemistry Certificate, the coveted H.N.C. in some circles, following 5 years of part-time studies: but only to get me the prestigious title of Project Leader, after serving the company a full year's apprenticeship as a Laboratory Assistant one last time, founding a Pulp Making and Bleaching Fibrous Raw Materials Section with the knowledge I had gained in Finland.
Thereafter I had the satisfaction to turn down their offer of a Senior Project Leadership position when I decided it was time to top up my studies with a University Chemistry course.
In the event I have to say it was the right decsion for the career that followed, took me all the way to the top of my profession, and gave me 30 years gainful employement!
To be on the safe side I searched my old wallets for an old business card when among the many I decided to take one of the last I used to when I styled myself ****** **** CSci CChem FRSC standing for Chartered Scientist, Chartered Chemist, and Fellow of the Royal (of The United Kingdom) Society of Chemistry of Konsultancy****, the name of my Consultancy which operated from 2004 11 29 the Monday of the first week of what should have been my retirement upon reaching 65. Together with a photograph, a self portrait when I still had dark hair, now turned grey in the intervening almost 20 years: and on the reverse side the same name but styling himself Chairman, Working Group of Cellulose Casing Manufacturers, based in Bruxelles, Belgium, as the headquarters of C.I.P.C.E.L. (Comite International de la Pellicule Cellulosique).
If ever I had wished to display a flair for anything it was at this point in my career, having one of Britains most successful Graphic Arts Company's Creative Director for a nephew -in-law and long time hill climbing partner, set the tone with the design of my business card, something he did without a fee, in a two tone colour scheme I had registered with the Finnish Chamber of Commerce. The people my colleagues in this committee all ppl I had met elsewhere either directly as Customers in the USA or in sister companies in Europe when I was a Paper Supplier, or through the Patent Courts, and Court of International Trade in New York City to take on competitors in battles against the US Customs Service, likewise, since becoming like they were, producers, even being an employee of the same company who attended our meetings in Brussels as a non competitive Company who shared a similar technology, and finally one of the members who my parent company had bought out such was their success. A curiosity also for being an original English speaking Englishman who had settled in Finland to become a Finnish speaking Scandinavian, in some ways being a fish out of water..!?
That is from being a young man in the summer of 1960, aged 20 1/2, when I was invited to attend my first Rotary Club meeting in Kuusankoski, to tell the gathering something of the background to my applying for work in the Central Laboratory of Oy Kymene Ab in Kuusankoski.
Until, quite old, I had never really contemplated attending another Rotary Club meeting, despite an offer having been made some years earlier by this same person, Dr E.
...to be continued in the light of the up-coming meeting?
That the meeting went well was perhaps to be expected: having come a long way since that summer of 1960, fresh out of my job as a Laboratory Assistant, 5 years since leaving school to work at one of the town's 25 Paper Mills. My brother, Jim, starting his career as a Fitter at Walmesles (Bury) Ltd, one of whose Paper Machines was still in operation in 1960, in Kymin Oy's Paper Mills, producing the very popular "Konsepti Paperi" with ruled lines left to right of the sheet and with the same spacing up and down, a light print for all manner of concepts. When I returned home I met Mr Sedgewick who lived across the same street in Bury, the man who had commisioned this machine in 1936, very interested to chat about Finland and Kuusankoski...
My horizons got be raised higher working as a "student" of a University, play-acting that is, aside from coming clean before the ppl of the Rotary Club, when I told my courses in Chemistry, Physics, and Mathematics, were by virtue of part-time day-release courses conducted on behalf of my employer.
Building a career which then included Pulping Processes, based on the Sulphite and Sulphate methods. Then upon my return, working as a bench Chemist's assistant, developing Basic and Vat Dye formulations, using reaction vessels and reflux condensors on a daily basis, my most interesting project preparing copper phthalocyanine pigments in a fume cupboard of a laboratory coloured "Monastral Blue", a long long way from the physics-based paper making at which I began my career. Then dipping my toe into Transparent Paper (i.e. Cellophane Film) manufacture to stay more with Chemistry than Physics, in between times returning to Kuusankoski for the summers and staying over a couple of winters.
Finally returning to UK for a Research and Development job with Wiggins Teape in the executive belt around London in Buckinghamshire in the town of Beaconsfield with, my "final" Higher National Chemistry Certificate, the coveted H.N.C. in some circles, following 5 years of part-time studies: but only to get me the prestigious title of Project Leader, after serving the company a full year's apprenticeship as a Laboratory Assistant one last time, founding a Pulp Making and Bleaching Fibrous Raw Materials Section with the knowledge I had gained in Finland.
Thereafter I had the satisfaction to turn down their offer of a Senior Project Leadership position when I decided it was time to top up my studies with a University Chemistry course.
In the event I have to say it was the right decsion for the career that followed, took me all the way to the top of my profession, and gave me 30 years gainful employement!
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