On 21st October 2015, 45 members attended at the Church Centre to meet our guest speaker Richard Gibbon OBE who was introduced by John Spinner.
Richard had enjoyed a varied career in engineering, culminating in the much envied post of Chief Engineer at the York Railway Museum.
He started by posing an engineering problem to the members involving a tumbling box which none of us managed to solve. His talk was titled “It Shouldn’t Happen to an Engineer” and covered various amusing incidents he encountered at the museum.
As a civil servant Richard was expected to answer letters from the general public within three days and he shared some of the more unusual with us although some were spoofs sent by members of his staff. His duties at the museum included acting as duty officer to deal with visitors’ problems and these supplied a fund of anecdotes. Questions from Forum members at the end of the session revealed how the Japanese Bullet Train and the giant Chinese locomotive reached the museum.
Forum Chairman Mike Earle thanked Richard for his amusing and informative talk. Richard donated his speaker’s fee to the Yorkshire Air Ambulance.