Paul Judd– a Dedicated, Long Service at Bournemouth and Poole College – Recollected

 “That's all we've got time for, so it's ‘Goodbye’ from me. And it's ‘Goodbye’ from him!” (Courtesy of The Two Ronnies)

The end of July saw a colourful journey for Paul Judd, Director of IT Services, come to a close as he retired. Paul has spent over 40 years in Bournemouth and Poole College, first as a student and then as an employee. In his time here, he has seen a total of seven Principals come and go – which he likens to the passings of Doctor Who! 

Paul started his early career as a computer programmer – a role he landed after his course lecturer offered him a position upon completion of his studies. He initially wrote software for teachers to use with students in their curriculum, mainly in science and technology, such as demonstrations of chemistry experiments or water circulation in heating systems. He said: "I later supervised a small team supporting IT and audio/visual systems - I remember the full works – from overhead projectors, leaflet and copying machines and manual typewriters. I've also managed libraries, timetables and receptions for small amounts of time, often to support maternity leave and other fill-in roles. Mainly, I have always worked in providing education resources in the form of IT workstations, software and systems to students and staff."

When Paul joined Bournemouth and Poole College, he said that we worked across multiple sites - at one point seven or eight, and none of the systems were networked. There was no Internet and staff communicated by sending memos. He asks us to imagine a world without email or better, less email. And he can recall the first requests to enable the Internet on workstations and having discussions about security risk. He has seen a number of technologies arrive in his time at the college and said many stayed such as interactive whiteboards, PCs, laptops, laser printers mobile phones; but others have gone, such as floppy disks, videotape, video discs, dot matrix printers, and Fax machines.

Much like the technology, Paul has become an icon for the IT infrastructure here himself, for many of the technologies now in place, the networks, the IT hardware, and systems are directly relatable to his service and career for their implementation. Home computers were just being made widely available in his early years at Bournemouth and Poole College Sinclair ZX80/81/Spectrum, Commodore Pet (Vic 20), Dragon, Apple and Apricot.  Early tablets (Apple Newton), Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs), and early attempts to digitise the Filofax Psion, to name a few. 

Paul recollects that at Poole before there were sufficient telephone lines to support outlying buildings, they had a semaphore system of large coloured shapes which they would put up at the windows so that staff in Portacabins would know to come to the main building to see someone or to take a call. 

One of the largest projects was to ensure that we were protected from the Millennium bug.  All equipment or systems that relied on dates and represented the year as two digits had to be upgraded to use four digits. There was concern that all systems would stop at midnight on New Year’s Eve in 1999.  They didn’t, other than the mobile phone network, but that was due to the number of calls!

Paul’s favourite story of working at the Bournemouth campus was climbing up inside the clock tower.  Before it stopped working in 2004 and then electrified in 2010 the clock had to be wound weekly and on one occasion Paul was allowed to clamber up with the caretaker.  Paul went on to arrange for a CCTV camera to be added to the tower to monitor the Peregrines that nest there from time to time.

Paul's wife is also retiring from her job, and they are both looking forward to spending more time in their family beach hut at Flaghead Chine. They will continue to travel, mainly in Europe, to Spain, especially Italy and France and the Channel Isles. Paul and his wife both ride bikes a fair bit so will also continue to do that.  One of Paul's long-time aspirations is to learn to paint in watercolours and he hopes to put this to the test when he retires. He spends a lot of time researching his family history, looking for old records and comparing DNA matches on Ancestry.com. 

Paul said he loves the college culture.  "Every day brings something different. I will miss all the friends I have in college, many drop in to see me at the beach and I hope they still will."

Paul felt his legacy will be that when he joined the college - it had probably only a dozen or so computers at Poole and IT students at Bournemouth coded on punch cards.  He has seen and had a leading role in orchestrating the IT that we use today both for teaching and running our business. Paul would like to think he leaves an IT service that is responsive to student and staff needs. He said: "I have loved my time in college.  I wouldn't have stayed as long if I hadn't.  I have loved the people, the rate of change, and working with a vast number of students over the years."

Recently, Paul was delighted to be asked to attend a Garden Party at Buckingham Palace to mark his long service in the Further Education sector. He said that it was a 'lovely time' and to gain 'recognition for his efforts' was wonderful. The canapes were lovely and he saw King Charles and Queen Camilla. Also, Prince Edward and Sophie, Duchess of Edinburgh, along with the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester. 

On 27th June, Paul was awarded a plaque naming the cycle shed ‘The Paul Judd Cycle Shed’, in his honour of working for the college. We do wish Paul the very best for the future, and thank him tremendously for his dedication over the years. We can catch him and the sunshine rays at the beach hut!