Welcome to the home of QBSoft

QBSoft Shareware was conceived in 1995 after a pretty long "C" programming class in which I was putting the finishing touches to a small Names and Addresses database which I had (rather tongue-in-cheekily) called "FoneBook", a small application which would hold up to a hundred names and addresses.

I became interested in Visual Basic programming and started creating a number of database applications. I kept these simple and made sure that they did only what was necessary, trying to keep these "small and friendly" gave birth to the QBSoft catch phrase:

QBSoft Shareware - Small and friendly since 1995

About QBSoft

My name is Martyn Cox, I am 47 years old and I live in the West Midlands, England. I am educated to first degree level and currently work in legal services.

In the beginning

I started out in 1961 born in Wordsley, West Midlands and went to Hawbush Primary School, then Hawbush Middle school until 1973, both of these schools were in my street so no long distances, and I could come home for dinner, both of my parents worked so I did in fact go to my Gran's bungalow for dinner, I tried school dinners but didn't take too well to them, when I eventually went to Buckpool the dinners were much better but at primary they were awful, and I don't know if they still do it but when I was a nipper in 1965-1966 (about 4-5 years old) after school dinner they used to make you eat a chunk of raw carrot, the school dinner lady would come round like the terminator with a kidney dish full of these chunks and watch over you while you ate this awful chunk of carrot, nowadays I think there must be a law against it but then you had to do it.....no surprise that there were piles of half mashed raw carrot under every table after she'd gone.

I think this might be why I detest raw carrot so much, and up until 1968 I had teeth too !

Cycling probably wasn't my strength

I remember back in 1968 I think it was, every Wednesday I'd go with my mom and dad to an Aunt's house in Pensnett, Brierley Hill (in fact I still have a lot of rellies there but sadly the aunt in question passed on a few years ago), I also remember being a keen cyclist despite being only 7 at the time, now dinner was cooking away on that fateful day when I was told not to go too far because it would be dinner time soon, and we were going to said aunt's house that day, so I trundled off up the big hill by my house and after about 200 yards turned to face downhill to belt down the road as fast as I could go, there was an old fellow leaning over his front gate at the time, a family friend who knew me well, so being the excited kid I said to him "Watch me go Mister!, just like Jim Clark!" who was a racing driver of the time, this old fellow said something like "Yow wanna watch what yowm a-dooin' aerr kid!" as I belted off downhill in the distance. Now than......just to explain what happened next, I have always been naturally stronger in my right hand than my left hand and nobody knows to this day what happened but we think I panicked, blacked out or whatever but subconscious took over and I yanked on the front brake (stronger right hand?), wheee......over then top of the handlebars and a face full of gravel, elbows and knees ripped off and no front teeth !!.

An ambulance was called by an old man across the road who forgot that he couldn't walk and literally ran across the road to me, they all thought I was dead because I was lying still in a large pool of blood, even the doctors at the hospital asked what sort of vehicle had hit me, they were amazed when my mom said "He's come off his bike!". When I came to I was in the kids ward at the local hospital where I stayed for 7 days, covered in scabs and cuts, stitches in my face, now I remember my neighbour was a ex-POW from Germany, a smashing bloke called Bruno who offered to fetch me out of hospital on the day of release, he'd got a car you see (an Anglia!), my mom told me later that once he got me back home she heard him scraping his Sunday dinner into the bin, the look of me had out him off his dinner, poor bloke!, needless to say I didn't arse about on my bike again, in fact it was only some skilful negotiation between my mom, dad and Bruno that ensured my bike survived the hammer attack she'd got planned for it.

Teachers? I was always sure that some of them were frustrated concentration camp commandants

Back to the school bit, I remember many of the teaching staff, Mr Chittock was the head teacher, a respected commanding looking man although I can't remember very much about him, I think I was only a little kid when he left Hawbush, Mr Worrall who was like your favourite uncle, a short man with greying hair and a permanent smile on his face, although if you crossed him he'd bite and you'd know you'd been bitten, Mrs Purcell who was quite a sharp lady, in her manner especially (not one to cross), and I especially remember a student teacher we once had....Miss Tyrrell, she was lovely and when she left all the kids were fed up, we later found out that she was coming back, and she did, but not only had her name changed to Mrs Taylor, but she had changed herself and wasn't the nice student anymore.......I was glad to leave Hawbush Middle school just to get away from her.

I was a failure, oh yes, none of that wooly PC "unsuccessful this time sonny" crap, I failed mate !!!!

I was a 12+ failure, perhaps I should explain more about the 11+ and 12+ setup.

Schools in my area ran exams which I believe are very much like modern SATs, at age 11 you were examined and if you passed then whoopee, off to the local Grammar School, however if you failed (yes there was none of the overdone PC then, you were a failure, not "unsuccessful") then you were packaged off to the local Secondary school.

Needless to say, I was in a group of kids who, in 1973 were told that 11+ was defunct so we were all going to "Comprehensive" school, but the authorities saw it another way and 12 weeks from the exam date decided that we would after all be taking the exam but they called it 12+. Despite a little preparation 59 out of 60 kids failed the exam. I was one of that 59. The LEA tried to get me into Sir Gilbert Claughton school in Dudley as I believe it was a school for "near misses" but despite taking all of my work away and scrutinising it I was still rejected and went off to Buckpool

I went to Buckpool School in 1973 where I worked pretty hard, there were some great teachers there and some that I wouldn't have paid in milk bottle tops, but Buckpool was a new school with new teachers and new ideas, some of the staff like I said I despised (they know who they are) and some were great, I often say to my own kids now that if I could travel back in time only once I think it would be to 1973, that was the effect it had on me, well...that and Slade releasing "Merry Christmas Everybody!" in that year.

Thugs, yobs and brain donors
 

The bullying, yes....I'm afraid it was there too, even back in 1973, we had one or two idiots in the school then, obviously I won't name names here but if they ever read this they'll click that I'm talking about them, I had a bit of it too, never one to fight back so I was the easy target, I wasn't alone though and occasionally I was left alone while the great unwashed focused their primitive attentions on some other poor sod, I had stuff pinched, homework ripped up, even had some medication from the doctor taken off me once.

I remember the hot summer of 1976 (yes....in England we have sun occasionally), I had loads of TD homework (Technical Drawing) because my teacher Arthur Jackson had asked me and a few of the other kids to draw up some exercise sheets for the Autumn 1976 term, I sat in a glazed veranda at home for days on end drawing this stuff, not realising that the heat on my back was going to have its effect....and it did because I spent that last 5 days of the school holiday in complete darkness with some form of heat stroke, I couldn't eat anything and even the light off a digital watch hurt my head!.

Examinations were the best laxative known to man

In 1977 I took Certificates in Secondary Education (CSE, now GCSE I believe) and out of 9 subjects I scored Grade 1 in all 9, I remember my mate Dave Handley coming to tell me that the results were out, he had got 8 grade 1's and 1 grade 2, he told me I'd got 6 grade 1's, 2 grade 2's and 1 grade 3 which wasn't too bad, I only got a grade 3 in the woodwork mock anyway so I assumed that I'd repeated the same performance again, this also amused the Neanderthals because they found it hilarious to have beaten 'Magnus' (as some of them got higher grades in woodwork) which was a nickname I got from the brain deads, there was a TV professor Dr Magnus Pyke around at the time and I won the nickname, looking back it wasn't the insult they meant it to be, anyway as I got nearer the school Dave told me the truth that I'd got 9 grade 1's but I called him a liar and rode on anyway, trouble is he was right, I was amazed.

Not long after that I had a letter from the teaching staff, if I can find it I'll show it on the site, it was from Glyn Brace-Jones the head teacher, a very nice "you're welcome to come back anytime" sort of letter, but I had to decide now what I was going to do next.

The plan was to go on to do "A" Levels, my parents were always supportive of education but they convinced me that if I was to get a job many companies would in fact pay for me to do the same as "A" Levels and I'd also have money in my pocket.....I'd strongly recommend that to anybody, it felt strange at the time but it was the best decision I ever made, however it wasn't entirely that reason that they stopped me from going on to do A levels, there's more to it but this isn't the place....sorry.

And so I went to work

I started work at Round Oak Steelworks in 1977 as an Electrical Engineering Apprentice and part of the training was a 3 month stint at Richard Thomas and Baldwin's, another local steel processing company which my dad worked at. I did courses in Welding and hand tool usage as well as a little bit of electrical work.

Then I went to college

Academically, in 1977 I started at Dudley College and did an Ordinary National Certificate (ONC) in Sciences which was Physics, Maths and 2 lots of Chemistry, oh.....I forgot to mention my electrical career lasted 3 weeks when I was offered a "white collar" job as a trainee Analytical Chemist, my dad told me to grab it with both hands and I did. I got the ONC in 1979 with Distinction and the company then approached me with an offer I was going to find hard to refuse.

Then I went to University

Round Oak seemed to have a "if you're willing to study, we're willing to pay" policy, often ONC students went on to HNC, then BSc then MSc and I think PhD if you were still performing, I was called in by the bosses who offered me the chance to jump HNC and go straight for the BSc. I talked it over with my folks and in 1979 started at The University of Aston in Birmingham.

In 1982 I graduated with a lower second class honours degree(2-2) in Pure Chemistry.

After all that I lost my job, bless the British Government for needlessly shutting down a thriving company

Round Oak, sadly (and many would say rather unnecessarily) closed in December 1982, the MSc never happened, although one ex-colleague of mine, Dave Donnelly did go on to complete his PhD and I believe that Dr Donnelly now works for the water authorities.

I got a new job, got married, had kids and started to get fat(ter) and old(er)

I went into legal services in 1983 and in 1984 got married to Alison who I met on a train whilst a student at Aston, of all things a burst radiator pipe on the train in 1980 which flooded the carriage started us talking and in 1981 (Christmas Eve) we got engaged, then married in 1984.

In 1990 three baby daughters arrived, I didn't know this but fatherhood also turns your hair grey and makes you put on weight but I wouldn't have it any other way.

Education bit me again in 1993

I had been out of academia for some time and the yearnings to do something started, I bought a computer, one of my colleagues asked me why, I said "to do my accounts and stuff", his somewhat curt reply was "why not just buy a notepad and pencil then?", this made me think that there was more to computers than "Shoot 'em up version 6" and such stuff, I enrolled at Dudley College once more and since 1995 I have been taking a number of certificated short courses, "C" programming, "Visual Basic" programming and "Installation and Maintenance" all at City and Guilds Level.

I started the Open University degree in 2000 and in 2008 I obtained an upper second class honours degree (2-1) in Computing and IT.

I hope you enjoy what you see here, click on the images on the right to drop me a line.

Martyn

April 2008