"Fortunate to have anexcellent teacher".TYPING along to gramophone records was part of secretarial training for Muriel Stubbins and her fellow students in the late 1950s and early 1960s. She left school at 16 after doing O levels and got a job as officer junior in the material control department of Dunlop Rim and Wheel Company Ltd in Holbrook Lane, Foleshill, Coventry. Her employer arranged for half a day a week of training at Coventry Technical College and she was based at the Brooklands Annexe an·nexe n. Chiefly British Variant of annex. annexe or esp US annex Noun 1. an extension to a main building 2. , which is no longer standing but used to be in Haynestone Road, Coundon, Coventry. She wrote: "Miss Annie Roseblade was my first typing teacher. She was an excellent teacher as we typed to old gramophone records (William Tell etc and I well remember the words, 'carriage return,' booming out from a very dark brown voice). She walked up and down the classroom looking at our fingers to make sure we were touch typing Typing on a keyboard without looking at the keys. Touch typing has become an essential skill these days no matter what line of work anyone does. In the early days, schools ordered special typewriters with blank keys. and not looking at our keys. In fact she missed nothing and everyone who had the good fortune to be trained by her gained an excellent start in a skill that led to a career to be remembered. "Eventually of course classes were held at the main college at The Butts. I remember being taught typing by a man who I believe was a Mr Jeavons. Mrs Cooke also took classes. "I believe I achieved 120 words per minute Noun 1. words per minute - the rate at which words are produced (as in speaking or typing) wpm rate - a magnitude or frequency relative to a time unit; "they traveled at a rate of 55 miles per hour"; "the rate of change was faster than expected" shorthand which was Pitman Classic and the last classes I attended as my speed rose were in Barker Butts School in Banks Road (again no longer standing) and this was in the evenings. "I achieved RSA I, II and III in typewriting but I failed stage III in the first attempt but this was because in employment I was using one of the first IBM (International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY, www.ibm.com) The world's largest computer company. IBM's product lines include the S/390 mainframes (zSeries), AS/400 midrange business systems (iSeries), RS/6000 workstations and servers (pSeries), Intel-based servers (xSeries) electric typewriters (with a dark blue case) and struggled with a manual typewriter typewriter, instrument for producing by manual operation characters similar to those of printing. Corresponding to each key on the instrument's keyboard is a steel type. in class at college." Mrs Stubbins, who lives in Shorncliffe Road, Coundon, Coventry and is married with one son and two grand children was Miss Cox before she married. She rose to be secretary to the director of Dunlop's aviation division. She left to have son and later went back to work part-time teaching typing and related studies at Henley College. Mrs Stubbins, 66, is now retired and a committed Christian. She said: "I'm a licensed reader who serves Jesus in many ways often using the skills I learnt all those years go at Coventry Technical College." CAPTION(S): Muriel Stubbins Muriel Stubbins Muriel Stubbins |
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