Readers letters
Once again in PE your letter writers bemoan the hijacking of the title Engineer by those of the cloth cap, greasy boiler suited persuasion.
Sorry people, get over it!
I came to engineering that very way, serving an apprenticeship in the 60s and at the same time going to 'tech'. No one told me I wasn't an engineer, my error in describing myself as one was not pointed out until I was in my twenties.
By then though my career had moved on; Service, sales, purchasing, quality, each time learning at home on my own account and also gaining a BSc with the OU, and ultimately membership of the IMechE.
So come on you engineers who so disparage the man who services your gas fire or put that extra electrical socket in your kitchen and must regularly familiarise him/herself with the latest regulations, when was the last time you did some CPD?
The word Engineer is forever lost to in a unique form, accept the fact please.
When I was studying for my OU degree and talked to a tutor about my aspirations of becoming Chartered he cautioned me it would not be easy. He said that those who had got in on a bus ticket has pulled the ladder up after themselves.
To be truly accepted as a professional body, our members should be required to do CPD, not just the new people but the old fogeys as well, those with the bus tickets.
If you are not learning you are not interested, if you are not interested you are not worthy.
David Taylor, Kendal Next letter: De Havilland Comet