Keith Richards is a retired mechanical design engineer who has worked in the industry for over 55 years. Initially he served an engineering apprenticeship with B.S.A. Tools, a company that manufactured a wide range of machine tools. On leaving B.S.A., he served as a freelance engineering designer in a wide range of industries that also included aluminum rolling mill design, industrial fork lift trucks, and the Hutton tension leg platform, an offshore oil production platform. In later years, Richards was involved in the aerospace industry working on projects covering aircraft undercarriages, environmental control systems for the military and commercial aircraft.