Douglas Baguley
Construction Engineer and Health & Safety Manager
ABGS 1957–64
Doug Baguley
I was born in 1946, on the Isle of Arran, Scotland, as my father, Frank Baguley a major in the Army Dental Corps, was stationed in Scotland during WW2. He married my mother Ella, a WREN, who was from the island.
My father returned to Aberdare1, to his job as the school dentist, in 1947, with my mother and me, and I went to Robertstown Nursery, followed by Park School (Ysgol y Comin), then ABGS.
I wasn’t particularly academic, but enjoyed a really good all-round education, as well as playing sport. I represented the school at rugby, cross-country and athletics. Outside of school, I enjoyed swimming and caving (member of the South Wales Caving Club, and Cave Rescue Organisation).
I left school after O levels, to study Building Surveying at the then Glamorgan College of Technology in Treforest, however, I didn’t really enjoy that, and left after two terms, to work for George Wimpey & Co. Ltd, at their Maesgwyn Open Cast Coal Site, in Glynneath, as a Trainee Engineer/Land Surveyor. That was an exciting place to work, with some of the largest excavators in the UK.
I went on to work on construction and civil engineering sites, including housing, schools, hospitals (e.g., University Hospital of Wales at the Heath), large drainage works, roads (e.g., the A470, from Taffs Well to Nantgarw), playing fields and running tracks, a major diversion of the Ely River, in Cardiff. I also worked on the colliery spoil heap safety contract after the Aberfan Disaster.
I worked as a surveyor for West Glamorgan County Council Estates Department, then as a Landscape and Playing Fields Designer in the Architects Departments. In 1980, I bought a home computer (16K of memory – those were the days!!), which eventually led to me running the architects department’s computer system, followed by a similar job at Kent County Council (KCC). I later became a Health and Safety Manager, at KCC, and, following a serious illness, took early retirement, at 60, to work as a part time self employed H&S consultant, working for a variety of clients, including the Houses of Parliament, before retiring fully in 2013.
I am a Nordic Walking Instructor, teaching it on a part time basis, plus leading a Nordic Walking Club on various routes in Kent – this keeps me reasonably fit. I also enjoy photography, and am a Rotarian, and get involved in various charity work, including being a Bloodrunner, a few nights a month.
I have a daughter from my first marriage, and two children with my wife Andrea (Williams), who hails from Cwmbach, and we have wonderful twin grandchildren (almost four years old), who we look after one day a week – great fun, but very tiring.
- The family lived at 15 Elm Grove, Gadlys.
31 October 2015