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‘A good man – greatly missed’

Mike had several aspects to his life and these are detailed in the pages shown below:-

• Peter Osborne's tribute
• Peter Stoddart's tribute
• Political man
• Auster man
• Academic man
• Beryl's funeral address
• Room renamed in memory

Academic man

Mike decided to have a go at academic life by joining the staff of what was then Trent Polytechnic. He lectured in mechanical engineering and soon became a member of the engineering design team. It was in the very early days of computers and Mike had a ‘Dragon’ at the time. The team managed to buy an American computer after some ups and downs with the government and set to work developing software that was to become the basis of computer aided engineering. When the polytechnic eventually acquired its own computing facility it was decided that the design team did not need to be connected as they already had a computer. Mike had other ideas and one weekend managed to run a cable across several roofs and connected to the much lauded central computer. This was a great step forward until one weekend there was a thunderstorm. This shut the computer down for several days until someone found this lightning conductor going across the roofs. The design team found it best to adopt a low profile for a time. After a number of years of his wonderful easy going but thorough approach to engineering he moved on from Trent to become professor of engineering design at Loughborough University.