BRIAN Taylor has shown you’re never too old to learn after graduating this week with a master’s degree at the age of 77.

The retired engineer, who lives on Malvern Road, Knutsford with his wife Mabel, attended his graduation ceremony on July 24 at Bridgewater Hall after completing a two-year part time MSc in Project Management.

Brian, who worked in the oil industry across the globe during his career, decided to take the course after speaking with former colleagues.

“It all happened by accident,” he told the Guardian.“Working in project management in the oil industry you get to know everyone and I met up with one of the guys and he said ‘why don’t you write a book?’.

“Then someone said they run a MSc at Manchester Metropolitan University, so I rang them up on a Thursday, sent my resume in on Friday and by the following Tuesday I was in my first lecture.”

Brian first studied for an HND in the late 50s before going on to work in Canada, Texas, Iran, Malaysia, Thailand, Europe, Azerbaijan and west Africa.

“I hadn’t done any ‘uni’-style work for over 30 years,” he said. “And my biggest problem was that in the real world you do things very differently so I had a sharp learning curve to get back into academia.”

With 1,500 students graduating last week, Brian made sure his younger colleagues remembered him fondly by pulling a little stunt when he went up to collect his scroll.

“I felt a bit mischievous when I went up,” he said.

“I did a bit of bow, which got a cheer, and I said to the Dean that I was the oldest student and I deserved a kiss – and she gave me one!

“I then had a number of people who came up to me after and said ‘I was a bit bored, thank you for cheering me up’. The wife keeps telling people that she’s proud but she doesn’t tell me that!”

Congratulate Brian at knutsfordguardian.co.uk.