Roger Boucher Vocational

Roger titled his vocational ‘Trivial Pursuits’ but this was far from the case.  He had numerous interesting anecdotes which he linked by going through the decades of his life.  Doing this, as club members are of a similar age, took us back, nostalgically, to a shared past. 

A fairly local lad, from Tewkesbury, he was born in 1951, the same year as Dennis the Menace appeared and the first radio broadcast of the ‘Goons’.  Some of his personal highlights were, at ten, going with the Queen to see ‘Crackerjack’ at the BBC, having jokes quoted on Noel Edmunds’ show, taking on TV’s ‘Eggheads’ (sadly didn’t win)  and playing darts against Eric Bristow. 

He had a love of music of the time going to concerts of Gerry and the Pacemakers, Jimi Hendrix and Bruce Springsteen as his tastes developed.  A very keen football player his team won the Senior Amateur Cup one year and, later, several five-a-side tournaments. 

His career as a Quantity Surveyor was inspired, unusually, by a Monty Python sketch (together with his friend saying it paid well).  After his degree at Nottingham he joined the Architect’s Department at Shire Hall progressing to become Principal Quantity Surveyor.  In 1990 he was, bravely, part of a management buyout forming a company with 70 staff and later merging with other local architects. 

Roger gave a very varied and interesting talk which all enjoyed, particularly rugby followers, by finishing with a video of a fantastic try by Gloucester.