Whatever happened to the fridge engineers?

UK: A new BBC radio programme will look at how life turned out for three students who trained as refrigeration and air conditioning engineers more than 40 years ago.

In the first programme of a new series, presenter Lauren Laverne meets three men – Nick Petford, John Russell-Sanders and Dave Coombs – who sat down to start their City and Guilds course in refrigeration and air conditioning at Eastleigh Technical College in Hampshire in 1977.

With the refrigeration and air conditioning industry currently desperate to attract young engineers, this programme reveals how instead of going on to carve a career in designing, installing and maintaining cooling systems, their lives took very different turns.

Today one of them is a university vice-chancellor and an expert in volcanology; one a photographer whose images have appeared on the front pages of national newspapers and one a teacher and carpenter who has created work for Windsor Castle and Salisbury Cathedral.

In the programme, Whatever Happened To…?, the three look back in wonder at what happened to them in the intervening years. They reflect on the choices they made and how they surpassed the expectations of their parents and teachers.

The programme broadcasts on BBC Radio 4 on Tuesday at 16.00.