Joe Brock 1973 to 1980

Joe Brock was one of the many boys from St Anne’s Primary School, Orpington who came to St Mary’s. The Brock family was well represented in the 1970s with Joe starting in 1973, following in the footsteps of older brother Matthew (1971) and younger brother, Jim, who started with the author in 1977.

 After leaving St Mary’s in 1980, Joe did an engineering apprenticeship with a company in Croydon called Babcock Bristol: “After two years on the shop floor not using my brain at all they sponsored me to go to university to do an Electronic Engineering degree,” he says.

After this Joe worked in industrial control and aerospace industries as an electronics design engineer but decided to do a PGCE at Cambridge to become a Physics teacher in 1988 and has been teaching ever since. He has worked in Africa with the Institute of Physics and a charity called PAGEANT.

He’s still in touch with a number of St Mary’s friends including Dom McKay, Chris Rogan, Jeremy Williams, Chris Bonvini, Dave Edwardes and Tim Ruiz.

Reflecting on St Mary’s, Joe says: “I loved just about every minute of it. What a brilliant laugh with great mates who I still see now. I could go on for ever about the school.”