|
Sir Anthony Cleaver Chairman of the Engineering and 
Technology Board (ETB)
By Eliza Parr, Kelly Davies and Jessica England.
Ribby with Wrea Church of England Primary School. Preston Lancashire Extract:
Sir Anthony went to a little village school which had limited resources. He says that the only science that he did there was biology which in his school days consisted of looking at nature! This is the reason that he got involved in The Big Bang festival (which he is currently chairman of). The Big Bang is one of the most successful ways to get children interested in science and maths! He said “The Big Bang inspires youngsters to get involved in engineering and makes innovators”.
Sir Anthony Cleaver Chairman of the Engineering 
and Technology Board (ETB)
By Eliza Parr, Kelly Davies and Jessica England.
Ribby with Wrea Church of England Primary School. Preston Lancashire
Sir Anthony Cleaver Our names are Eliza Parr, Kelly Davies and Jessica England and we are all aged 11. On Thursday 18th June we travelled all the way to London from Preston to interview Sir Anthony Cleaver. This article will be all about our meeting with Sir Anthony Cleaver and his great career.Sat in a horse shoe we all waited nervously for Sir Anthony to enter the room. As this was the first interview of the day we were very unsure of what to expect, but when we got started everybody started to feel comfortable and the questions started to flow….
Sir Anthony went to a little village school which had limited resources. He says that the only science that he did there was biology which in his school days consisted of looking at nature! This is the reason that he got involved in The Big Bang festival (which he is currently chairman of). The Big Bang is one of the most successful ways to get children interested in science and maths! He said “The Big Bang inspires youngsters to get involved in engineering and makes innovators”.Sir Anthony loves music like opera and magical music. He is closely involved in the Royal College of Music.
Although having a busy schedule, he still manages to fit in swimming every morning at Hyde Park. He gets up first thing in the morning to go swimming, “You must have discipline in all things you do”. When asked if he would have enjoyed a career in swimming or music he replied “I find that swimming is for people with a very physical build which allows you to get to top in sport”, which he personally thinks he doesn’t have. He says that there is a “limit to what you can achieve in music through hard work” - you need raw talent to succeed in this tough business. Therefore he finds it impossible to say he would have chosen music or swimming if he had been good enough at it.Obviously Sir Anthony has had many other jobs but by far his favourite is his current job!
He finds that having had so many opportunities throughout his life he says he has been very lucky and has had a great mix! “The most important thing is to do something that you like”.As you might imagine Sir Anthony has met many fascinating people throughout his life, however he said that the most interesting person was Rostropovitch. Rostropovitch was a famous cellist who Sir Anthony met when Rostropovitch was given an honorary degree. Sir Anthony was there because he is currently chairman of the Royal College of Music. Sir Anthony said “I admired him because he used his music to try and make a difference in Russia”.
Sir Anthony thinks that it can be hard to see how important engineering is to the world. Sir Anthony said” Great engineers are invisible “. He feels that through events like The Big Bang children can be encouraged to pursue engineering and science. A major surprise in his life was when he found out he was going to be knighted for all his work at IBM. “The main reason was for my services to export”.“When I was born there were no computers at all”. Now computers can be small and powerful but when they were first invented they would have filled the room! Sir Anthony expressed concern about the environment, “this will be our biggest challenge”.
He left us with the thought do everything to the “very best of your ability”. To find out more about the BIG BANG event follow the link. |
