My Father
Edgar Fitch (1917 -- 2009) was my father. Born in Brampton Bierlow as the
first child of Robert and Annie Fitch he was brought up in
Wath-upon-Dearne in the West Riding of Yorkshire. After local school
he went to Manchester Victoria University on a Miners' Welfare
Scholarship to read Matheamtics, the grant being insufficient to allow
him to take his exhibition at Cambridge. A first class degree (top of
the class) was not enough to keep him out of the Durham Light Infantry
in 1940, and after a disasterous career as an infantryman was
commissioned in the REME, initially working on searchlight sites, but
later at a Polish Government research establishment. He remained a
government servant until his retirement. Until recently he spent his
time making wine, printing, playing the recorder, and cycling, but
failing eyesight curtailed the printing, and he stop serious cycling after he was 90.
I learnt a great deal from my father, including a love of mathematics,
and how to program computers, a skill I learnt at the same time as
Edgar did in the late 1950s.
jpff@cs.bath.ac.uk
Last modified: Wed Sep 5 08:59:53 BST 2001