What a great bloke he was to have as a
teacher. No pushover though. He took us
for a short while in the first year and
one day started to teach us some binary
maths. While he was standing there
teaching he was also wiring up a strange
primitive calculator with loads of bulbs
and wires. Anyway, he wrote out a 4 or 5
digit binary number and asked us its
value. A few hands went up and he asked
me the answer, which I gave. He smiled
encouragingly and asked me to explain how
I’d arrived at my answer. I
foolishly went through a description of
how the values of the columns from right
to left went up 1,2,4,8,16 etc and the
implication of a 1 or a 0 in each column.
He looked very pleased and asked to
explain how I knew all that. So, even
more foolishly, I proudly told him how
we’d done it before in my Primary
School the year before. All through this
he nodded and smiled approvingly, and
when I finished told me the answer was
wrong. Cool as you like with that amazing
‘Pancho Gonzales’ moustache and
loud check jacket, he was also a pretty
good jazz pianist.
| At
some point in about 67 or 68 we
had a school concert and
‘Pedro’ sat down at the
piano and started to play. Within
the first bar or two the whole
school had recognised the tune,
Bach’s ‘Air on a G
string’, and a loud giggle
went round the SB Hall. This was
of course as a result of the TV
ad for Hamlet cigars. Well
‘Pedro’ was not in the
slightest amused and stopped
playing, glared about the whole
Hall, asked what was so funny and
then only started playing again
when silence returned. Some
ominous ‘Jazz
Man’………yeah……wow……cool.
By 68–70 concert going was
the thing for us. Went to a few,
especially at L’pool
Students’ Union. They nearly
always seemed to be by ‘Ten
Years After’. Saw them at
least four times and I swear that
at each gig when I went to the
Bar for a lemonade (yeah, right)
Warwick ‘Pedro’ Evans
was always sitting
there…..reading a
book....having a pint.....True.
Always gave a cheery greeting.
Good bloke indeed! |
 |
Editor's
note: Sadly, Warwick Evans passed away in
July, 2000 after a long battle against
cancer. A memorial postcard of Warwick at
the electric piano, titled, 'Let the Good
Times Roll' is pictured above. Please
find a further article entitled, Celebration of the
Mathematics Life of Warwick Evans [2ndJune,2001] by Trevor Powell
|
