Peter Mee
(Assistant Planning Officer, 1959-67; Registrar, 1967-96; College Secretary 1996-98)
tells tales of the metric system never catching on.
Watch the interview or read the transcript below:
During my time in the Planning Office I was one of the people responsible for dealing with the contract of the old sports centre and the swimming pool, and this was in the early’60s. I can remember ringing up the Amateur Swimming Association and trying to get a view on whether we should develop a pool which was 25m long or whether it should be in feet and inches in a multiple of 100, so you could have 110 yards and a mile and the rest of it and I was told by the ASA ,”There is no way we will ever move to metres.” And so we built the pool for 82ft 6inches, so every time you wanted 25m you had to put a little sort of extra thing in to create the space.
© 2007 Imperial College London
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