Imperial romance: Ian and Ann-Margret Plummer (née Radford)

Ann-Margret (Mathematics 1959) and I joke that we met in a dark room – and look what it got us. Literally we did meet on the PhotSoc Committee, and may well have worked in one of the darkrooms at the same time.

Ann-Margret (Mathematics 1959) and I joke that we met in a dark room - and look what it got us. Literally we did meet on the PhotSoc Committee, and may well have worked in one of the darkrooms at the same time.

We really got together in 1959 when we were both resident in Beit Hall. The ladies lived on the third floor, and I was on the second - well most of the time. Many pots of tea were shared, especially at weekends.

I was quite active in student affairs. I started at the Royal School of Mines in 1955, and quickly became involved with Felix. I helped write and type the stories and mount them on boards ready to go to the "offset" printer. Then I became more involved, and started to handle the money - as treasurer. Ann-Margret says this was where we were first in contact, as she placed an ad to try to find the cover for her umbrella. I billed her the princely sum of nine pence.

My student activities continued, and in 1958 I was elected Honorary Secretary of the Royal School of Mines Union (RSMU), and in the following year was Honorary Secretary of Imperial College Union.

Although Ann-Margret and I ‘knew' one another, we didn't become an item until we were both in Beit Hall in 1958-59. She was Honorary Secretary of Imperial College Women's Association (ICWA), and I was with the RSMU, so we both had social obligations. What was more natural than for us to go to things together? Of course at that time there were only about 100 women students at the College, and so she was a real find! At the end of that school year, and at one of the balls, I proposed to her, and she accepted my plea.

When Ann-Margret graduated in 1959 she worked in London as a computer programmer, and we continued to plan our future.

We married in 1961, and set up home in Coventry. At that time I was working for the National Coal Board in Warwickshire, and getting really dirty for a living. That was a real eye opener for a young lady! It was even more so when we started a family, and moved to live on an estate with the miners. We didn't live there for too long, and bought a small old row-house in a nearby town. Here our second child was born.

After six years in the mining industry I earned ‘my stripes', was appointed underground manager of a mine, and moved to a house next door to where I lived as a boy. My father used to work at that mine, and my uncle still worked there, reporting to me for the activities on the night-shift.

After a couple of years the coal industry was going through one of its periodic contractions, and my mine was to be closed, with little prospect of moving to another in Britain. So, we decided to go abroad, and with two small children we moved to a mining town in northern Manitoba, Canada. We moved around the province, but spent about 18 years at mines in the far north of that Province. Ann-Margret created her own jobs - starting a child-care group; starting and editing a small-town newspaper; and being the receptionist (and computer wizard) for our local dentist. Then, as always in the mining industry, the mine was exhausted and we moved on, this time to northern Ontario where I worked for the provincial government as a mine safety inspector, before retiring about 12 years ago.

We still live in the north, and fill our time with hobbies and volunteer activities; being a volunteer can be a career in itself.

We are proud to say that we have raised a family, and that they are now contributing to the world. Our son followed his mother's predilections, and is a network consultant for Microsoft. Our daughter followed me into my profession as a mining engineer, and currently works in Northern Finland for a Canadian mining company. There she is general manager of a new gold mine, and recently proudly announced the pouring of the first gold ingot in Finland's history.

Ian Plummer (Mining 1958, MSc 1960)