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DIRECTORATE OF TELECOMMUNICATIONS
PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS - POST DTELS
Brian Walters
Me?
I’m Brian Walters from Bridgend depot. Mentioned in the Link once, on the back page of issue 4-4, in the Health and Safety article.
I was at Bridgend for all of my service, first as a WT starting in 1975 at Police HQ, Bridgend and then after making representation, I got promotion to SWT in 1985. The depot was moved to its own site at the old REME workshop in Litchard around 1980.
I jumped before I got pushed in the cull of 1989 and finished in early 1990. I did a fair number of Pocketfones in my time, I had been with Pye Telecom in Cardiff for a few years and it was there that I learned many of the manufacturer’s tricks, some of which had never been seen on the Home Office test benches.
After leaving the D of Tels, I was out for about a year and then found a job at the Rhondda Heritage Park as the maintenance engineer and left there after about five years. I then found my way into the airline industry, maintaining and calibrating the avionics test equipment. The company soon realised my interest in all things RF and I ended up specialising in the radio and radar equipment, with a rather perverse interest in the theory and practice of transmission lines.
I retired from work in 2001, after the medics at the local hospital found a tumour inside my spine, thankfully it was benign and they managed to get it all out, but it left me with a wonky leg. I now keep myself out of mischief by continuing my college education; in 2004 I completed two OCN courses on web design and advanced graphics. In 2005 I got my CompTIA A+ certification and this year I graduated from HNC Computer Science (Software Engineering). I have now started doing Dip HE in computer science with a view to continuing onwards to a degree.
While I was with the D of Tels, I was pretty well known to the folks up at Hendon on the PNC control, I also did the Dacoll VDU course up at Bathgate. Looking back, it seems like I spent more time on courses than I did working for a living, apart from those at Harrow and then Stanmore, there were courses at Queen Anne’s Gate, I also did a course on the Burndept/ CYFAS which was used in South Wales Police for “Command and Control” I was also involved with WARC planning at Bridgend, working with Peter Pinel and Gordon Wyatt too.
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