If My wife and I have got this right, are you the fellow we send pictures or info to add to the page ?

 

I found your site whilst trolling for ICT 1301 contacts. ( that's another story ) But my wife was the demonstration lady ( who liked skiing ) Rita Nash, now Rita Brown. I on the other hand, have left my sticky finger prints on the inside of the Ampex TM2 decks at Putney, lots of times, before moving on to 1900 thru to 3900 . Between us we clocked about 68 years in ICT/ICL so have many memories, to share.

 

best regards

Rod and Rita Brown

Rod & Rita!!

 

Yes, yes - I am that man!!

 

Good to hear from you and to start sharing some of those memories.

 

For example.......

 

What was the name of the lady who ran the Demo Room?? Rita was one of "Mrs ???????? Girls"??

 

Also, any contact with Maureen ??? (what was her name??) who lived out Chalfont/Gerrards Cross way?? I thought I'd found her about 6 months ago, sent an email but reply was there - none!

 

I can remember the 1004 being installed in the Demo room - and I operated the 1500 for another year after that I reckon - then I moved to the ICL Harrow Sales office - and lost contact with Rita etc... What happened thereafter?? Did the Demo Girls continue their glamorous work?? etc.... and yourself Rod - why can I not place you?? were you Ampexing before I arrived??

 

Let's reminisce...!!

 

MC

Hi there !

 

We have contact !

 

Rita is working on a small "war and peace size" email, which includes some of the answers you seek.( putney was her base ) Rita still has the ability to make any computer crash in spectacular style, by just thinking about using it. so she is restricted to her own laptop.

 

In my case, I am not sure if we met mike, but the engineers I took over from on 1300's were Alec Duncan (Scottish, with a yen fur da Wuskey ) and Norman Blackmore.I spent many years keeping the old 1301's in london running, before working on more modern kit.

  

I did visit putney, many times, in the last days of the prototypes, specificly for the TM2's and also got into atlas in London University, on the same pretext. I am about to do something about 1300's this very spring, but as I said ( that's another story ).

 

Keep your eye's peeled for Rita's email, and we will stay in touch.

 

Rod

Hello, from the 'dead ringer for Wendy Craig'

 

At last a good reason to join the Silver Surfers in earnest.  I had been thinking about trying a few searches for old ICL colleagues for some time now (is this a sign of old age?) but as usual there was always something rather more important or more fun to get on with.  I was very pleased then when Rod announced his discovery of your email.  I do hope that you will be able to track down some of the many names that sound so familiar although I cant put faces to them all. Have you tried the Friends Of ICL website yet?

 

First the Demo girls that I remember  - Maureen's maiden name was Stockwell and she left the demo team along with Pat Manassa and Edwina Richardson to work in a local college teaching Data Processing.  I think Pat went first and the others joined at later dates. I believe that Maureen later married but I dont know her married name and Pat was then divorced.  Other Demo girls that I remember were Debbie, Ros and Jackie, and our Glamour Lady in Charge was Mrs Beryl Acty. A bit of a disciplinarian, had us trained like Air Hostesses but could let her hair down when she wanted and was very popular with the Salesmen and Directors.

Unfortunately I lost track of them all after I moved into Sales Support.

 

I found myself lying awake last night thinking of all the great times that we had in BHS.  Ten pin bowling matches between operators and demonstrators, ( I think that the operators won most of them), river boat shuffles, socials/dances in the ICL House Social Club, (some of which I organized when I was the Social Secretary), and the amazing amount of time spent in the 8 Bells, otherwise known as ICL East. 

 

I also have to laugh at some of the demo situations that I found myself in.  Trying to run demos involving magnetic cards which  always wrecked and the new continuous magnetic tape cartridges which also wrecked and then having to endeavor to divert the customers attention to something that did work, if anything, if not then it was time for coffee or early lunch with a quick change of plan for the whole day.  And I will never forget the day when I sat down at one of the early video terminals which was linked to the computer in the main computer room. Just as I sat down to start the demo my foot touched the metal frame on which the video was resting.  There was a dramatic discharge of static and the whole system went down including everything in the main computer room.  Our party of prospects were long gone by the time the system was up and running again and the evening was spent spraying anti static solution on to all the carpets.

 

 

Another memory I have is of one of the programmers coming into the demo room very exited about an attempt at the first Putney comms link that he was about to set up.  I believe that it was John Foster. He spent some time linking a Teletype to the 1500 downstairs which eventually worked, transmitting at the grand speed of three characters per second (or was it three seconds per character??)

 

Should the official ICL photographer, whose name I do not remember, ever read any of this then I feel that I should make an apology in regard to some of the VIP visits that he was sent to record for the ICL News.  I became so tired of seeing my face in this publication, as I assumed so would everyone else be, that after a while, every time that he got lined up to photograph our little group with me obviously in the middle I would quickly divert everyone's attention to the 'very interesting cabinet on the other side of the room' so just at the crucial moment as the scene was about to be recorded for posterity suddenly everyone was looking in the opposite direction. Whoops!.

 

I think that this is enough history for the moment. I am now off to see if I can find some of the old photographs.

 

 

Regards

 

Rita Brown (nee Nash)

 

• With this flood of good info and memories I asked if I could 'publish' Rod & Rita's emails verbatim...many thanks for the go ahead!!

 

HI mike,

 

Rita and I say "yes please", proceed with the email publication.

Rita is also trying to remember more which may result in further info, lowdown, secret's of peoples past. Some photo's may even follow if she can find them!

I will pass on the existance of your site at the next retired kent engineers meeting ( drinkup ) and the London MOD engineers, so who knows, there may be lots more contacts soon.

 

Keep up the good work, Best regards

Rod and Rita brown

 

From: mike curley [mike_curley@hotmail.com]
Sent: 27 January, 2003 10:21
To: 'rodritab'
Subject: More memories.....
 

When OUP finished I moved into Harrow office working for John Minter ? some sort of centralised role for all the areas in the region ? and then more for Terry Baxter and LNW Area.

Harrow Office

Met Darryl Mills there and new joiners were John Braithwaite, Richard Sabido, Rita Burhouse, and some while later Tony Bull, Brian Bold, Ian Limbrick, Malcolm Shuttleworth, Andy Roland.

Clients were:

• BEA at Heathrow engineering base
• IDV
• Guinness
• Another beer brewery ? Ind Coope??
• Windsor & Newton

Other notables at Harrow were:

• Terry Baxter - worked with him in Slough too
• Graham Stiles,
• Bill Edmonds
• John Davies ? LNW Manager
• Dai Thomas - Administrator
• Jurgen Kraus
• Jenny ?? - married Andy Roland

• Peter Hooper

• Anita Nash - secretary

• Pam & Tony Hadaway

• Rob Needham,

• Jamie Muir,

• Colin Foster,

• Neil Frith,

• Christine Foote

• and New Zealander Alan Rosling

• And here's a picture - supplied by Brian Bold - he reckons taken at a Christmas party 1968/69 showing left to right - Mike Curley, Aileen Connolly, Jurgen & Heidi Kraus, Brian Bold and Sandy, Tony & Pam Hadaway   can see better on my web-site.  http://mikecurley.simoncjwalker.net/mjc/Papsy-icl-harrow.htm

 

-----Original Message-----
From: rodritab [mailto:rodritab@onetel.net.uk]
Sent: 09 February, 2003 00:08
To: mike curley
Subject: BHS Memories