io for pens nckiser (formerly Reckitt & Colman) Pen ners of the Reckitt Be sion Fund No. 48, September 2010 Studying history – and making it The country’s oldest university graduate is one of us Carrovian pensioner Bernard Francis has, at the age of 77, become the country’s oldest university graduate of 2010. He was awarded his MA in history after studying part-time at the University of East Anglia. Bernard, who was general manager of information services at Colmans from 1961 until his retirement in 1988, started a two year certificate course in Anglo Saxon history and language in 1998. He followed this up with five years of part-time study to gain his BA degree and continued a further two years of post graduate study for this year’s Masters. “I have always been interested in history and when you get to my age you want to find out if you have been missing anything.” said Bernard. “I never had any trouble fitting in at the University – I just acted like any other student and thoroughly enjoyed it. The hardest thing to deal with at my age is the creaking.” But Bernard is not resting on his academic laurels. He has already enrolled on a new level three course (equivalent to the third year of a degree) at The Open University. THE CHERRY’S NEW LABS 50 YEARS AGO Bernard is pictured top left on graduation day and, left, when he was at Carrow. In this issue… Committee elections Dolly Blue’s original owners Advance of the on-liners Pensioner war hero’s DFC The Cherry’s five sisters – P3 – P4 – P6 – P7 – P8 The print of the old office building in Chiswick in our last issue (Contact No. 47, May 2010) caught the eye of Matthew Williamson, not an R&C pensioner although his father, Roger, manager of the library and information service at Chiswick, was. Matthew not only had his father’s copy of the print, which he is passing on to the Heritage Centre at Dansom Lane, but also some colour photographs of the then new laboratory block at Chiswick taken by his father around 1959. As is evident the building is in the final stages of construction and on P5 we show another picture with the new and old buildings. Old pictures often evoke more memories than words. See P8 for some of the other responses to the historic Paul Hogarth painting. next page