Welcome to the home page of Neil V. Hawes This page contains information about me with links to other sites that I have created and some others that might be of interest.

Neil at work at HP in 1999

Employment I have worked in computing for over thirty years, for the last thirteen years for Hewlett-Packard UK Ltd. as an Account Support Manager. See more details below, or see my Résumé. Education I studied at the University of York, gaining a joint honours degree in Maths and Music. I was educated in Rugby, Warwickshire, at Paddox County Primary School and Lawrence Sheriff School and am a member of the Old Laurentian Society. Personal and non-work I live in West London and am married with two children, one is a teacher and one recently married. I am the Organist and Choirmaster at St. Mary's Church, Osterley and have recently been appointed Musical Director of Whitton Choral Society. I do quite a lot of singing, I play piano, church organ and electronic keyboard, I compose and arrange choral music, and I teach music theory and sight-singing. I run the piano section of the Hounslow Festival of Music, Speech and Dance. I subscribe to New Scientist magazine and like to read "popular science" books, with a particular interest in cosmology and particle physics. I try to keep fit and enjoy running, four or five miles twice a week, when I have time. A few years ago I bought a Pentax digital camera - here are some of my best pictures.

Employment - more detail Hewlett-Packard (HP) is now the largest technology company in the world, having taken over Compaq in 2002, which itself had taken over Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) in 1998. A DECsystem-10 was the first real computer I used at York University in 1976. I am an Account Support Manager in the HP UK Customer Services organisation, providing support services to a specific customer. This means I am responsible for proactive as well as reactive support on the most important computers in the customer site. The operating system on most of these computers is HPUX, which is HP's version of Unix. I get involved with recommending patches, answering technical product questions and running meetings to review the service we provide. I mostly work at the customer site, but I also visit the HP UK headquarters office in Bracknell, Berkshire. Prior to working for HP, I had worked for Wang UK, a now defunct computer manufacturer, in support and marketing, and for Stewart Wrightson, a Lloyds Insurance Broker, as Technical Services Manager in the City of London. I had started work in computing as a programmer with British Airways, and I still enjoy solving problems (see my spreadsheet to solve SuDoku puzzles).

Church Organist and Choirmaster - more detail The organ in 1962 This is the organ I play every week at St. Mary's Church, Osterley, a Church of England parish church in the Hounslow Deanery. It is a three-manual instrument, built by Gray & Davison in 1857 and modernised by Comptons in 1962 (which is when this picture was taken). A detailed history of this organ can be found here (general information about organs here). You can hear some extracts of me playing on my page about wedding music. I run a mixed four-part choir of around 15 members that is affiliated to the Royal School of Church Music. We normally sing an anthem every week, a list of those we have sung at Sunday services can be found here. In 2003, I played the organ for a concert performance of the well-known Saint-Saens "Organ Symphony" with the Hounslow Symphony Orchestra conducted by John Andrews - here is a short sample (152Kb MP3) recorded at the concert. In January 2005, I organised the music for a concert to honour the retirement of the vicar and his wife after 21 years at the church - see this local paper report. The church has some very fine Victorian stained glass made by Heaton, Butler and Bayne.

Singing and other music - more detail Neil as choirboy, c1967 I started piano lessons at the age of four, passed ABRSM exams up to grade 8 and studied piano with George Nicholson at York University. I started singing in a church choir at the age of 10 (see picture!) and attended two residential RSCM courses, from where I was selected to attend cathedral courses at Westminster Abbey and Norwich Cathedral. I was appointed organist and choirmaster of Holy Trinity Church, Rugby, at the age of 17 before I left school. I then sang with the University of York choir. I joined Whitton Choral Society in 1997, and sometimes accompanied or conducted rehearsals for them. Following the death of the Director of Music in April 2009, I was appointed to that position. From 2007 to 2009, I sung with The Hythe Singers, a chamber choir based in Egham Hythe near Staines, Surrey and set up their web site for them. A compostion of mine, "The first snow of the year" was performed by them at Christmas 2008. I also occasionally sing with the University of London Church Choir and have sung with them in Southwark Cathedral five times over the last two years and once in Lambeth Palace for the Archbishop's award ceremony. Once a year, from 2000 to 2004, I conducted an ad-hoc choir of 50-70 singers in St. Paul's Cathedral for the Mothers' Union London Diocese. In 2004, I conducted a Hounslow Deanery combined choir for a service in Bath Abbey. In December 2006, I was asked to write a piece of music for a Hounslow Symphony Orchestra concert to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the church - I called it Sesquicentennial Fantasia.

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