mr roger bowen

I was born in 1935 in Swansea and brought up there and in Maidstone in Kent the only child of David Oswald Bowenand Marjorie Talbot Norton. In 1944 the family moved to Maidstone in Kent. From 1944 to 1954 I attended Maidstone Boys Grammar School. From 1954 to 1956 I served in the army as a National Serviceman both in the Royal West Kent and the Royal Welsh Fusiliers in Germany. At Oxford University, Keble College, I read Engineering Science from 1956 - 59.

In 1960 I married Brenda Rosemary Gordon with whom I had two children, Joanna Talbot (b. 1961) and Geoffrey Gordon (b 1964). From 1959 to 1966 I was employed as an engineer in Elliott Brothers (London) Ltd., a subsidiary of the Elliot Automation Group where I qualified in electronic Instrumentation as a member of that section of the Association of Electrical Engineers and was accepted into the British Institute of Management. From 1966 to 1970 I worked for John Heathcoat and Company in Tiverton as General Manager in charge of the installation, manufacture and sales of Textile Machinery, in a new purpose-built factory in Exeter. In 1970 I acquired the share capital and ran the business of Marcus Hodges (Engineers) Limited until 1994. From 1974 to 2000 I served as a lay member of industrial tribunals and from 1977 to 1983 served as board member of the Engineering Industry Training Board until it was shamefully disbanded under Mararet Thatcher’s regime. From 1972 until 2002 I was a board member of the Engineering Federation (EEF) Western Association, of which I was chair in 1977-79. From 1992 unitl 2006 I served as chair of the Devon Historic Buildings Trust (DHBT) during which time many of the historic buildings of Devon were restored from dilapidation with the means of earning their living sustainably into the future.

From 2005, together with my wife, Brenda, I established and ran the Annual Music Festival in Budleigh Salterton until we handed over to others in 2012.

My published works are listed elsewhere: these included biographies of General Julius Goodwyn and of Thomas Nadauld Brushfield and the story of two friends who made large changes to the way in which the East India Company was managed in the eighteenth century entitled The Curate and the General. I published also an autobiography, Swansea Exile, describing my early life in Swansea and Maidstone.

In retirement, with Brenda, I ran the Budleigh Salterton Music Education Trust which helps youngsters from disadvantaged homes to discover the joys of making music.

Budleigh Salterton,

2020