Keith Webb (OH 1964-74) followed in his father's footsteps (Edgar Webb, OH 1942-48) by attending Hymers College.  After leaving Hymers, Keith went straight into work, starting at the National Westminster Bank in Silver Street on his 18th birthday.

Since then, he has followed, in his words, a 'random' career path.

After banking I went to work in the oil industry in the Shetland Islands for 3 years and on my return accidentally found my way into the supermarket business as a buyer. Initially, with a long-gone chain in Hull called Goodfellows and from there a number of chains such as Tesco and Sainsbury’s. I became MD in my last corporate role and floated that business – Conviviality PLC – onto the stock market in 2013. 

He now works as a Business Adviser helping start-ups, micro-businesses and SME's (small and medium-sized enterprises) to thrive. He is often a sort of Chair for these businesses that cover a number of sectors.

In recent years, he has worked with a brewery, a soft drinks manufacturer, an IT software house, a drinks export business, a gin brand that ended up on Dragons Den (they got the money!), and Indy rock band Wolf Alice, this year’s winner of the Brit award for best UK band.

Currently his main contract is with a business called LineClenze which has a unique proposition in the food and drink industry equipment cleaning market. They alone have a non-caustic cleaning system and so are positioned to help thousands of businesses across the world reduce their environmental impact.  They have just launched their new website, www.lineclenze.com as part of their push to widen their reach into the food and drink industries. Although it started out as purely a beer line cleaning business, they have already branched out and are helping the Californian wine industry reduce its water use and environmental impact. They are also about to move to trial with a worldwide soft drinks business.

Keith is still in touch with a small number of his former classmates (Class photo on right - Keith is on the front row, far left).  Many of his cohort went to university whilst he chose a different path and so their circles diverged.  His favourite teacher while at Hymers College was the late Joe Gilbanks who got him through both ‘O’ and ‘A’ level Geography.

Mr Gilbanks was always enthusiastic and up for a field trip!

His fondest memory of Hymers was being awarded his First XI cricket cap for a back-to-the-wall batting performance that salvaged a draw against Pocklington.

If my memory is correct I batted through 32 overs for 1 run.

Having no musical talent (even though he now works in the music business) he was one of 3 tone-deaf individuals ‘chosen’ to perform ghostly “wooo wooo’s” in a piece performed for parents at a musical evening arranged by Mr Watson, the head of music at the time.

We missed all the cues from Mr Watson, totally lost our way, gave up trying to work out where we were and, at the end, performed a hugely exaggerated bow to the great amusement of the audience – if not Mr Watson.

Whilst at school, Keith was involved in a film club as well as sporting activities.

In the 1960’s there was a loose congregation of us who got together around a record player to listen to the latest releases from The Beatles, Rolling Stones etc. In the early 70’s we had a film club but most of my non-academic time was spent on sport. I was house captain (Brandsburton) for both rugby and cricket and played for the cricket First XI many times.

Keith appears on the front row second from the left in the Cricket 1st XI in 1973.

Thank you Keith for returning to school to deliver an assembly to our pupils.