Hi,
I was there at ILEA trying to stop the closure of the college. I was doing the HNC in Marine Electronics Engineering and the MRGC. We had to finish our studies at South London College in Norwood. The MRGC was badly catered for and eventually just faded away as people gave it up. I was the last to stick with it until they finally made the decision to scrap that too.
I missed the comradely at the college and I loved the view from my room over the Thames. I restored a couple of ships for the Principal, no idea where they are now. Someone told me they had been put on display in the Maritime Museum, but I have not seen them.
Timing for me was not kind. I graduated in 1990 and went for interviews at the Defence Research Agency in Farnborough, for which I was accepted into Missile Technologies and Counter Measures. However with the Berlin Wall falling and the change in world politics my post became postponed. I remained out of work, not finding anything in electronics engineering. The Gulf War of course started the machine rolling again but I was out of work too long and without enough experience necessary to get back into it. My training by then was out of date. I then went to Australia and got work in Fremantle near Perth in Western Australia working on a ship yard installing Radar and GPS, autopilots etc, but that did not last more than a few months as my HNC was old and I did not have an Australian Standards certificate which would have meant me going back to college again for another year and to get a certificate of trade that they required.
I changed jobs and went to work as a dealer in the casino for a few years, but gave that a break for a year and went back to London and became a Chauffeur for a year. Then returned back to the casino for a few more years and finally decided to go to university. I am now expected to graduate from a BSc in Environmental Management this December and I may stay to do Honours in Urban Planning, or a Grad Dip in IT. I do hope one day to return to UK as all my family are there.
I would be interested to know of anyone else from my course has signed in, especially Vicky Sullivan she may have married since and may not have the same surname.
I remember going back to the site before it was demolished and thought that if one day if I had the money I would have bought the Folly and rebuilt it. It was a shame to see the swimming pool covered in a mat of algae and the gymnasium floor warping and crumbling apart.
I will always remember the good times I had there and the lovely views from the canteen every day for breakfast.
Regards
Daniel Millan
I joined in September 1988 after leaving the regular army in July 1988 and stayed until the MNC had to close. I joined the protest at ILEA to oppose the closure of the MNC but our banners and our numbers and our petition was not enough to change what was to happen. We held meetings in the canteen at MNC to discuss a strategy to prevent ILEA from closing us down.
The reason that nobody bought the site was the fact that the old officers training college or to us known as 'The Folly' was a listed building and a ruin. If anyone was to buy the site, they had to incur the costs of restoring the house and in the meantime the cost of security to stop people vandalising and trespassing was mounting. I was lucky enough to have been one of the students who managed to get a look inside the magnificent building when you could at least imagine what it used to look like. If anyone knows what Wray Castle in the Lake District was like that they would see the similarities. The hall was a lovely wood panelled high ceiling hall with a huge mirror reaching from floor to ceiling. Two lovely staircases went up both sides of the mirror to the upper level. There where cellars but they had collapsed. Admittedly the view was by torchlight at night on the hunt for ghosts or scaring other illegal visitors.
I remember spending most of my time in classes staring out the windows to watch the shipping going past the window from the river, and loved the marvellous view from the canteen.
I know I was not there long but I was inspired by the place and felt a tragic loss at its closure. I remember coming back to see it a few years later and met the old security guard that used to be there when the college was operating, he allowed me to go down and walk around the class rooms. I could not believe the state of the pool, which had a layer of mould scum at least two inches thick over it as no one had drained it since closure, this in turn had left the ground floor so moist that the gymnasium floor was breaking apart from warped timbers, it was not how I would have liked to remember the college.
Regards
Daniel Millan
Email via MRGC1989