Who Else Would It Be?

I have worked with for this company for nearly 44 years and its fair to say that the General Post Office I joined is not the same as the BT I am leaving. 

The title of this meander comes from a phrase that  MA used to exclaim that seemed so apt on so many  occasions. Things would work, get done and succeed not due to direction and planning from above but  but because folk wanted stuff to work and to succeed and went the extra mile to make it so! I believe it’s still true today and BT would do well to believe in its home grown experts and the knowledge they hold.

I have had some wonderful experiences and have worked with some great people. I have had the honour to work in …and lead some terrific teams and thank them all for being part of my life.

In the beginning

I started as an apprentice in the Reading Telephone area, we were based in a small building in Eastern avenue. the Apprentice cohort was made up of the Newbury, Slough and Reading telephone areas. about 30 of us. We started working in small groups of around 6 learning how to wire phones, starting wil a DEL (direct exchange line) and moving to plan 1a (Extentions) amd plan 4 (Plug and socket) from there we learnt to build and adjust uni, group and final selectors. Stitch tie and terminate cables. these were done to specific ways and knots. There was a lot of banter and fun. once the phones were wired in we used to ring folk and tease folk we rang. I remember one of the guys rang a number in the USA and told the answer that there water was to be cut and they should fill their bath and sink so they had a supply.  there was a phone box we could see from the window and we used to ring the number to see if we could get someone to answer and string them along.this was a typical pranks we played.

We went to Woodley to do the pole training and overhead cable practice. initially working on short poles and then when we were thought safe enough we got to climb and pull cables at full height. this set us up for our initial ventures out into the field. we started on the vans fitting phones using our newly acquired skills to help a real telephone engineer to install phones in peoples homes. While “on the vans” George Harrison and Alastair Sim stand out for me.

I got to go to Friar Park in Henley to move a phone from Georges Recording studio. he was kind enough to autograph a couple of my albums. this was topped a few weeks later when I went to the British Grand Prix. I went with friends to the practice sessions pit passes et al. and George had released a single in tribute / memory of to JPS driver Ronnie Peterson. I joined the queue to get it signed on the Friday before the race. He looked up from his desk and said Hi Graham if I’d known you were coming we could of given you a lift and laughed as he gave me my single. something I will always remember.

Meeting Alistair sim was much more low key, I went with a chap called Les Graves (who had won £20,000 on the Pools ) in his van to move a phone. it was 1975 ish so December /January. I remember his wife offered us tea on a regular basis. Being a fan of the St Trinnian films and having been brought up on Ealing Comedies it was a great to have actually met him he was such a nice chap.

while on the two years we got to go on several visits. we got to sail on a cable ship, we went out and round the Solent ant watched a cable being jointed. A chap sat in a moving chair to join the two ends of cable as the ship moved through the water. the cable joint and chair moved along the centre of the boat and had to be complete ready to drop into the water as the cable played out. it was fascinating to watch,

we also got to play football for the Centre against a similar establishment in Brighton. I had joined number of sports teams and played rugby and squash for the southern area over the time I did my apprenticeship.

 

Rural Exchange construction

My year “placement” as an apprentice I went into the Exchange Construction unit and worked with the Maidenhead Construction team with Dave Scott, Alan Aikenhead, Stu Plank.

Then with Dave and Alan In Marlow, Twyford, Bourne End. these three exchanges had a common interest. the Bourne End maintenance team produced wine, using the old switchboard rooms to hold the demijohns. the building bubbled and popped as things matured, Most rural exchanges were set in a largish plot of land and the maintenance TO used the grounds as a large allotment, growing spuds and carrots, peas and beans. this was all brought together at marlow where the permanent team enjoyed to cook. every couple of months there was a banquet. the trick was always to find a job to do in one of 3 exchanges in banquet week, that got you an invite to the table. I found over time that each exchange had a “speciality” Windsor was the photography club, camera repair and dark room technique. Woodley had a car repair set up with paint shop and welding capability. others had card schools, darts teams, “film” shows and one i remember had a lake as part of the boundary, the TO had the alarms extended to the lake side and spent much of his day fishing.

Colossal Bletchley

Somewhere in there I did my Non director A & B and Register translator training in Bletchley park. played football for the local team against the Air Traffic Control trainees. The meals were interesting the canteen was outside the park site because of the security imposed on the place – i don’t think the work of the bletchley park people was generally known, might event have still been secret! while we were there a chap (Tony Sale?) who was rebuilding the Colossus computer  from WW2 in the suite of racks next to where we were putting our newly acquired register fault finding skills to the test.  I was amazed to see the machine was made of standard “GPO” components. They had a deal in Bletchley where you could get into London by train for a quid, so I used to visit Sidonie @ St Thomas’s and Lambeth Hospital on various evenings. this might have been around the Ken Livingstone Fares Fair set up so we used to go around the sites and some of the free radio shows.

I moved to working in the Reading area with Lyndsay Edwards Graham Spearpoint and Jeff jones putting in TXE2 mobiles. these facilitated the digital exchange transfer. we would transfer the existing exchange to a pair of mobile caravans. The building would be cleared so that the new Digital concentrators could be installed and the mobile was then transferred back to the new concentrators to provide the digital experience to the subscribers Customers  I Used to take Libby our dog with me to the more remote exchanges for company and used the cover plates recovered from the populated racks  to hone my roses and castles (canal) painting tequniques.

The Gift of Gatherings

I moved to work with Graham Spearpoint and Jon Collins ( introduced me to the Wembley / Wasps crowd)  on TXE 2 exchanges where Dear old Freddie Brown would come out for Timesheets on a Friday and we would meet in the Local Pub. Every few months Dave Fisher our AE would hold a get together at some local hostelry where folk would meet over a beer and swap cable and tag blocks, lamps (not bulbs) and waxed twine. He later told me these get togethers cost a few pints but were more productive than almost anything else he did.  Sharing resources and tips while the guys enjoyed an afternoon. Somewhere in that time I can remember working at Bracknell exchange working with Eddie Edwards, Dunc Hardy, Malcolm Coulson Graham and Ted Taylor. John Hewitt was there  somewhere although he was largely in the rival “gang” in Ascot Pete Hobbs, Joe Cox. Steve Vaughn and xxxx. I learned a lot about amicable rivalry and team bonding at that time. I can also remember working on a register type 5 when a woman engineer came on to the third floor for the first time. Sue was a new exchange maintenance T2A. you could hear a pin drop, I reckon even the equipment went quiet. she was limited to large exchanges because they tended to have operators and therefore ladies loos. the smaller rural exchanges only had one loo so were deemed unsuitable.

Data and Jiff centre

I got the opportunity to train on the system X equipment. This was about 40 weeks of training in about 18 months most of which was in Stone part of my development of my love of Canals. Following completion of the training I went to work in a new set up that supported one of the “new Ideas” that BT had just instigated. In Maidenhead we had the Data and Jiff centre and turned the exchange transfer exercise from Months to weeks and in the (over) 1,000,000 lines we transferred we had less than 100 fault on transfer. We had a terrific team Dizzy Prismal and Bob Inkpen ran the mechanical side and Malcolm Coulson and Derick headed up the Data centre – I still have the brochure that was produced on the opening of the “Maidenhead Data Centre”. I worked mainly in the Data centre along with Martin Beech, Tony Nealon. Chris Beggs, Chris Simms, Andy Wray,  I became ToA for both the Data Centre and Jiff Centre, at one point both at the same time! Remember poor old Steve Vaughan a gentleman who had the idea of taking telephones and technology into schools and made little mini exchanges to demo. It was about this time I put in the idea that vending machines could be interlaced with telephones (Mobiles were new but becoming available) such that you could dial in a number and the machine would deliver your drink can, choc bar or whatever. No cash and BT could handle the transaction. I was told BT didn’t see itself as a banking facility. I seem to remember Pete Buckle was a Strowger Maintenance engineer at Maidenhead, roomer was he had a Group switch “chromed” as a show piece.

hot from the white house

I got put forward for a development placing and got to work with people all over Thameswey. As part of the exercise I had to present a piece of my choice – my topic “the use of personal Computers in BT.” This was where I realised an expert is someone who knows how little they know ☺. In the maidenhead Data centre we had a network with 30 odd PC’s with additional memory cards giving 2 Mb of Ram. We had 3 x Novell servers v2.05 and a hard drive extension running 1Gb remember the CSO chaps coming to look in awe at the boxes. We had to use a dial up modem and accessed a raw internet ish thing via Compuserve to get fixes and updates for our novell servers. I used this access to take some classes in a local school. we took PC’s and components apart to show the kids what these things were. we connected to the compuserve messaging service and the kids composed and sent a message to the US President (N0 10  didn’t have an account). to everybody’s surprise (including me) we had a reply from the White House before the end of the school day. I seem to remember the reply was personal and warmly enthusiastic toward the children’s endeavours. You never know unless you try!

Almost Cellnet

I decided it was time to progress my “career” and applied to be deployment project manager for the roll out of the Cellnet network BT’s 1st cellphone network. This was a promotion to MPG2. the interview was initially focused on job orientated questions. I had read up on Cellnet and how many of this and that, and what the plans for growth etc., etc., etc., having read anything I could find I was able to recite back the facts and figures I had learnt. the subject was changed and for some reason we started talking about Beyer Garret steam locomotives. having recently built a model of such a loco I spent the rest of the time talking about auto coal feeds and reverse running and other quirks of these engines. the interview finished and I left the room. I sat in the café area and had a coffee one of the chaps who interviewed me came in and pulled a handful of photos out to show me some pictures of some south African beyer Garret locos he had taken, think he was a bit of a fan.   I passed the interview and was offered the job. at the same time BT announced “Sovereign” a huge planned reduction of middle managers. the first of the early release schemes. they had a rethink and a week later the post was canned.

I become a commuter.

I continued in the Data/ Jiff centre until a post for IT and Systems manager for BTI came up. I successfully applied for the job. I joined a group of folk in New Fetter lane in London Bob Brooks, Leno D’Elia, Jim, and John Baldwin among others. They were an odd bunch , so I think  I fitted in quite well. I had responsibility for BTI’s IT infrastructure a 3com network – I became a 3Wizard! , and was responsible for links to the Earth stations at Goonhilly, Madley and Aberdeen (I think). I had the opportunity to visit these places to make sure all was fine. I remember going to Cornwall and staying in a B&B in a wreakers village and getting a guided tour of the area from Linda Hydes. I had a similar tour of Madley from Bob Brooks.  I held the purse strings and got to meet and talk to some fascinating people both inside and outside the company. Got to go to my first Microsoft Teched in 1994 in Bournmouth on the Pier. Moved the network to MS Lan-Manager with much help from Leno and took BTi onto Windows persuading Microsoft to donate several hundred Mouse-mats one for each user on the network. I covered everything from PC repair to divisional budget control and training. I found when I opened  the PC’s the dust and muck was incredible. I got fed up in ruining ties with dirt and catching on sharp point in the box. I asked my boss Keith Bailey if I could stop wearing the tie and was told absolutely not!!! so I started wearing a bow tie instead it was my way of making a point. for Christmas that year I got a hand made waistcoat heavy tapestry cloth and lots of pockets. This combination became my uniform and was my pass card photo from then on. The waistcoat was great I put together a tool kit with multi head screw drives, a small pair of 81’s (wiring pliers) and a cable knife. I carried a multitude of thin Ethernet parts; T pieces, Terminators, Plugs, connects etc. I always had the tools to fix most easy probs wherever I went. On day Bob suggested we went to The Royal Courts of Justice to see if there was anything to watch. we went along and without thinking  I walked up to the gate to go through and the alarm bells rang. it seemed to take an age for me to empty my many pockets much to the bewilderment of the security staff and the amusement of my colleagues. we sat in on one of the most fascinating and comical pieces of theatre and at the same time one of the more important legal dramas ever to hit the west end. McLibel a case where the McDonald’s empire sued two unemployed protesters. there is a lot to tell but the summary is McDonalds lost and it was the most costly liable case in the UK to this day. I went to see the case several times, I think it had a big impact on me.

lunch times were often a walk around the strand, fleet street and occasionally down to Newgate Street the Roman Wall and BT Centre. Often went to St Brides church where performers due to play that evening @ the Barbican would rehearse. we saw several classical musicians, hand bell ringers piano players, singers and organ players. once we sat and watched an apparently well known piano player. we were running tight for time and the chap kept coming back for encores, he finished his piece and bob said in a slightly louder voice than was needed “quick lets go before he does another one!” a few to many heard this I think as we bolted for the door, applause still ringing out.  I little later   We had problems with many of the PC’s (Largely 8086’s and 8088’s) and so with a No new PC’s order having been given we found a company that would upgrade these devices to 486’s – we upgraded everything in the PC with the exception of the floppy disc drive ☺. In doing this I formed a “User” Steering group to get an idea if the issues and produced a news sheet that had cuttings from trade papers, details of training and local information.  Against others better judgment I invited all the folk who were regularly having problems or complaining about things. I figured if I could get these folk on my side they would sell the changes to everyone else.Linda’s PC long had issues.  Leno used to refer to her regular reports and complaints as messages from “Hades” We changed her PC and found one of the pins on one of the memory chips was bent out (in those days memory was individual chips not the ram modules of today). that would have been the problem then!! Linda was always very helpful and supportive of the things we did on the network, selling the changes and advances to her colleages.  I think it worked. I learned that sometimes people moan and complain because things are actually wrong and they care about it.

on the roof of London

In the 80’s  the only quick & legal way of transmitting orders internationally was via telex. So there was a set up on BT Tower that received the satellite orders and changes. I used to go to BT Tower and up into the heights of the tower to change the dot matrix printer ribbons (whether they needed it or not)  so that satellite line-ups to Afghanistan or wherever were appropriately approved and paid for. I also used to go and visit the chap who did the line of site transmissions who “lived in a little hut on the very top of the tower. He used to slide the aerials around to point at Wembley, Wimbledon,  and other places that don’t begin with “W” with so much hanging on it it always seemed so “Heath Robinson.”