John Heppel

On leaving school I worked for two years in Launceston with a firm of Auctioneers and Estate Agents, then two years in Okehampton as a salesman before joining the Civil Service with the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance in Launceston. I worked in Launceston and in London with them before joining the Department of Employment in Launceston in 1967. I was based in the Launceston and Bude offices until 1975 when I moved to Trowbridge in Wiltshire. For most of the lime there I was an employment Officer for blind and disabled people until I was promoted to Higher Executive Officer in 1987 and moved to the Sheffield Head Office as Manager of Special Schemes. These schemes were specifically designed to help disabled people in the UK take up and retain employment.

In 1993 I was fortunate enough to escape the Civil Service by taking voluntary early retirement at the ripe old age of 52. After that I became an employment consultant with the Royal National Institute for the Blind in South Derbyshire for a while.

By this time I was very much into flat green bowls both on the playing side and administration of the sport. In 1995 I was appointed to the post of Secretary of the English Bowling Federation, which operates on the eastern side of England. It is a part time post and I work from home to suit myself except for the monthly meetings and attendance at the indoor and outdoor championships.

I am married to Sylvia (sister of Bernard Tucker who was in the form below us) and have two children, Lynn and Andrew, and two grandsons. These are my daughter's children and she lives nearby, just outside Rotherham. My son has just recently married and lives in Southampton.