Frank's Biographies and Resumes

Biographies

A 'Technical Writing' resume. Academic and International Resume available upon request.

Here are a couple of Bio's, a short and a much longer one, really written for family and close friends, but others are welcome to read it if they have the stamina!

Short Bio

Frank was born in Liverpool, England, brought up in Kenya, and returned to England aged 18. He served a spell in the British Army, did various odd jobs, then went to St. Marys Hospital Medical School (now Imperial College), London.

He did an orthopedic residency in Toronto, Canada then moved to the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio. He published widely on topics related to orthopedics, particularly the spine.

He has been involved with the web for several years, and was an early adopter of HTML and PHP. He served on several W3C working groups, including the HTML and the DOM groups. He wrote several books on XML, HTML, DOM and other subjects.

He worked as a medical software consultant for several years and was CEO of Cormorant Software. He is now retired.

His Hobbies now include programming, bread making and and hickory golf. He was secretary to The Society of Hickory Golfers for several years. Over the years he has been owned by several cats.

He is married with 5 children and 5 grand children.

Long Bio

Summary

Frank was born in Liverpool, England, brought up in Kenya, and returned to England aged 18. He served a spell in the British Army, did various jobs then went to St. Marys Medical School.

He emigrated to Canada; worked as a rural general practitioner before doing an orthopedic residency in Toronto, Canada; then moved to the Cleveland Clinic, Ohio. There he worked as an Orthopedic surgeon with a special interest in the spine. He published widely.He slowly became involved with the Internet, and the IT side of medicine. He founded his own medical informatics company, and this expanded into a successful and full time business with several employees. He remained and remains an emeritus consultant with the CCF.

Family Background

My father was John Boumphrey M.B.E, my mother was Phyllis Clarke. My father was descended from a long line of Liverpool merchants and ship-owners; The Boumphreys on his fathers side, the Housdens on his mothers. My mother was an orphan, and grew up in a catholic orphanage.

In fact it was later discovered, after her death, that my mother was the child of an English socialite. Her putative father, and my grandfather, was an officer in the Imperial German Army. He was killed at the Battle of the Somme in WW I, the same battle that saw the death of two of my English ancestors.

Co-incidentally, one of the sisters of my Liverpool grandfather married a German officer, and their son became a Luftwaffe pilot. He was shot down and killed over the Bristol Channel during the WW II Battle of Britain, the same battle that saw the death of another of my English ancestors; so I lost relatives on both sides in both of those terrible wars.

Such 'co-incidences' are not uncommon, as social connections between British and German were strong in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. After all Kaiser Wilhelm II was a nephew of Queen Victoria.

Early Years

I was born during WW II. While my father was serving in N. Africa and Italy, my mother and I lived with my grandmother in Liverpool. I have no memory of these years except a vague memory of the night our house was bombed by the Luftwaffe. Apparently a fire bomb came through the roof, and the house was completely gutted.

My father returned to England to prepare for D-Day, and my mother and I moved south to Caterham, into a house with my father's sister Joan, and my cousin Michael.

As an aside her husband, my uncle Rogue, had been in the RAF, and fought in the Battle of Britain. He was color blind, and had 'faked' the color blind test. When that was discovered he was no longer allowed to fly combat missions, and became a test-pilot, where he flew some of the early proto-type jets.

My father, who rose to the rank of Captain in the Airbourne Division, never talked much about his combat experiences, but I know he saw and endured some terrible things, including being dropped short in a glider during the Sicily landings. I also know he was in the second wave at D-Day, and was later seconded to Eisenhower's staff as liason officer. Apart from that all I know is from a reading of his combat ribbons.

Pre-war my father took an economics degree at the London School of Economics, and was awarded a scholarship for a year to travel in America. He loved it there, and may well have stayed, but the war intervened and he returned to England to sign up on wars outbreak. I'm not sure how he met my mother, but they were engaged early in the war.

After the war my father took a job in London, and commuted to Caterham. I have many happy, though rather dis-jointed, memories of this period, but then my mother died suddenly. She had had TB, but the cause of her death was a cerebral aneurysm.

Liverpool

I was sent north to live with my Grandmother who owned several Nurses Homes - residential homes for nurses. There I was smothered in love by my Grandmother, my Aunt Margery, and several of the nurses. Several of the nurses were widows or spinsters with the same story. They had lost a fiance or young husband during the First War. With 1 in 4 of the male population between the ages of 18-40 having been killed many women had few chances for a suitable match or re-match. That war scarred several generations.

Also in residence was my Great Grandfather, who I remember for his smell of cigars and whisky. I was formerly presented to him every night in the true Victorian fashion. Every friday night he would reach into his waistcoat (vest) pocket and pull out half-a-crown (about 50 cents then or $5 in today's terms), a silver coin and about the same size as a copper penny. A vast fortune to a young boy. With a wink he would say 'Here's a penny for you'. Alas, my Grandmother was on to us, and as soon as I left the room, she would intercept me; 'shake me down'; and substitute the half-crown for a real penny!

My grandmother - Susan - was a wonderful woman. She had been widowed shortly after the first world war, and left to look after three children. Joan, Robert, and the youngest my father John. Luckily her family was enlightened for that era, and insisted that all the females should have an education before marriage. She became a nurse, and before her marriage was scrub-nurse for Robert Jones, the father of Orthop(a)edic surgery. I did not know that before I chose orthopedics as a profession, so perhaps it runs in the blood. After being widowed she started a successfull nursing home business which at one time ran three homes. A remarkable achievement for a woman in those days.

Although loving she was opinionated and tough. Several years later, when she had retired, I was living with her and Aunt Margery at their house just outside Salisbury in Wiltshire. An elecion had just taken place, and I cofessed I had voted for Harold Wilson and the Labor party. She made me sleep in the coal shed until I appologised!

Her husband Harold was also a remarkable man. He apprenticed as a mate in the days of sail, and made several trips round the world in the old wind jammers. Reading the writing on the wall however, he became a marine engineer, and an engineering officer. He rose to become chief engineer of the White Star Line - an office he held until he died suddenly of 'angina' in 1920. He was a great amateur photographer and happened to be in San Francisco during the 1906 earth quake. I possess a magnificent albumn of the photos taken during that time. Family legend also has it that he was due to sail on the Titanic, indeed he had overseen part of its construction. Illnes however caused him to nominate a replacement, and this replacement went down with the ship. Such are the small chances upon which rest the hinges of fate.

Also in residence was my grand-mothers sister, Aunt Margery. Another wonderful woman, but quite different from my grandmother. She managed the books and generally ran the Nurses homes. She was a 'character', anecdotes about her, some of which I witnessed were many and and humerous. An energetic suffragette she was also an exceptional dancer, and an indefatigable traveller and had gone out to India. Apparenly while there she had got into some kind of 'trouble' and had had to be 'rescued'. Hard as we might try my cousin Michael and I never dug out from her what the 'trouble' was.

London

My father had been commuting up from London on alternate weekends. Eventually he saved enough money to buy a house in Mill Hill in London, and my Grandmother and I travelled down to live there. The nursing home business had been nationalized with the onset of the NHS - a fact that probably led to my grandmothers reaction in the anecdote I told above - and Aunt Margery was left to tidy up the loose ends before joining us. In London I started going to 'real' school, an all-boys preparatory school that decked us out in a uniform of purple, black and gray. Here I was introduced to the rigors of the standard English education of Euclidean Geometry and Latin, as well as cricket and football. I have mixed feelings about these school days, the Head master was a sadist of the worst kind, but many of his staff were exceptional people, and I met with many new friends.

Meanwhile my father met and wooed my step-mother Betty, a wonderful caring lady whose family came from Northern Ireland. When my sister Susan arrived granny and Aunt Marge moved out to their own house. Shortly after my father was offered, and accepted a job with the railways - the EAR&H - in Kenya. So began another chapter in my life.

Kenya

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I spent some time at the Lenai boot camp, where they tried to make bloody minded colonialists into good British soldiers - with partial success. Seared in my memory is the drill sergeant CSM Cadre MM of the Scots Guards. Interestingly enough I met him again in England in the bar-car (where else!) of a train travelling north to Scotland. He was then an RSM, and I was dressed in the uniform of a Parachute Regiment Lieutenant.

"Gawds streuth", he said, "they made you an officer!" Then a very belated "Sahh". We sank several pints, and I'll never forget him walking down the corridor back to his seat. His legs were doing a good imitation of an Irish reel, but above the waist he was ram-rod straight! I remember thinking no wonder that lot won the war with men like this to lead them.

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British Army

On one occassion, after reading my resume, my brother wrote:

No, I'm sorry .. I'm pretty sure that somewhere around British Army and University is "Trainee Lawyer, Bricklayer, London Tour Guide, HAGT professional (Having a Good Time), etc etc"
"He's wasting his life", Dad would grumble. "No self discipline". "I'm sure he'll settle down eventually", Mum would answer.

And he did. Sort of.

Well, not exactly, but I did find things I enjoyed doing!

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Medical School

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Canada

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Cleveland Clinic

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Cormorant Software

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Family

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Epilog

I am noted as a something of a raconteur. As an Uncle would say "All good stories have a basis of truth, but you should never let the exact truth stand in the way of a good story"; or my friend the late, great Bob Tomaro would put it; "What you are about to hear is the absolute truth - and some of it actually happened"; or what my friend Chris Brown describes as, "A master of bullshit"; or most forthrightly as my cowboy friend Bill MacClean puts it "We love to sit round the camp fire and tell lies". However what I have described above really is the truth as best I remember it. If there are any errors it is due to poor memory rather than a desire to spice things up.

That is my life so far, written here for my closer friends and family. I hope you have enjoyed reading it half as much as I have enjoyed living it.

" It has been my privilege to walk among the human race for a short time, but I must shortly take my leave and return to from whence I came. I hope that I have left some love and friendship, for that is the best thing any man can hope for."