When James R Knowles went for his first interview as a trainee quantity surveyor at LC Wakeman he said he had no idea what the company did because in the early 1950s “nobody dreamed of becoming a quantity surveyor”. He was 16 and had got the interview with the engineering company through his father, but it was nonetheless a typically self-deprecating remark from a man who more than four decades later would own a construction disputes resolution company with a £30 million turnover.
James, who was known to all as Roger, admitted to struggling with the structure of classroom learning at school in Warrington, Cheshire, preferring the joshing of the choir and the sports teams. Yet after he left school his approach to learning changed.