MEMORIES
Life after Sheffield City Grammar School of Leo Young (formerly Jung)
Education .
I came to Sheffield in
1938, and soon after arrival was admitted to the Sheffield City Grammar
School. When war started in September 1939, I was evacuated to Kegworth
in Leicestershire. Homesick, I returned to Sheffield in June 1940.
My family moved to York in February 1942, where I went to St. Peter’s school.
In 1943 I went to Cambridge, and took degrees in Math (1945) and in Physics
(1947).
Bradford, London, and
America.
After Cambridge, I taught
for one year at the Bradford Technical College (living at home with my
parents), then moved to London in 1948. Married in 1953, we moved
to America the same year, first to Baltimore, Maryland, then to California,
then to a suburb of Washington, DC. I moved back to Baltimore in
1999.
Family History.
I was married in January
1953 in Sunderland to Fay Merskey, at which time we had no inkling that
we would soon be moving to the United States. Fay passed away relatively
young, in 1981. I was married again in Washington in 1983 to Ruth
Breslow, a social worker. Ruth passed away after a long illness in
1996. I was married a third time in 1999 to Jo-Ellen Turner, who
teaches English at Villa Julie College in Baltimore. (That’s why
I moved back to Baltimore. Baltimore is about 40 miles from Washington.)
Jo-Ellen’s daughter and family (originally from Philadelphia) now live
in London. We just returned from visiting them. My sister lives
in Manchester.
Employment History.
I worked in London on
radar research, first at Cossor, then at Decca Radar, till 1953.
That year I was made an offer I couldn’t refuse by Westinghouse in Baltimore,
Maryland, with moving expenses paid. In 1960 I joined Stanford Research
Institute in California, to do research more academic than is possible
in industry. I came to Washington in 1973, at first to work at the
Naval Research Laboratory, then as Director for Research in the Pentagon.
I retired in 1994. Later that year I started to consult for Filtronic,
Ltd, in Bradford, Yorks. A fringe benefit was frequent visits
to England. (Since Filtronic has many facilities in the US, most
meetings nowadays are held by teleconferencing between the UK and the US,
thus cutting down on travel.) After retirement I moved back
to Baltimore in 1999 for reasons explained above.
Professional Society Activities.
I have been active all
my life in professional societies, especially the IEEE (Institute of Electrical
and Electronics Engineers). I served on the Board for eight years
and became President and Chairman of the Board for 1980.
Current Status.
I am now retired except
for my Filtronic consulting. I keep busy doing volunteer work, for
example serving on committees of the IEEE, the National Academy of Engineering,
the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Johns
Hopkins University. I enjoy reading books (for which I never had
much time before), auditing classes at Jo-Ellen’s College, and browsing
on the net—which is how I found Alan Lomax’s website on the Sheffield City
Grammar School, and thanks to him, of you.
With best wishes,
Leo