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DIRECTORATE OF TELECOMMUNICATIONS
PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS
Life Working in D of Tels
By Mike Leigh
My name is Michael Leigh always known as Mike to my colleagues; I joined the then Home Office Regional Wireless Service station at Stanton-on the-Wolds on or about the 6th June 1960 and resigned through voluntary redundancy on the 23rd March 1990.
Some of my former colleagues may recall me as having had the great privilege of representing them as a Civil Service Trade Union representative for the Wireless Technician grades – I then subsequently became the Senior Wireless Technician’s representative from 1983 – 87.
Stanton Depot when I joined comprised the Officer in Charge, the Regional Wireless Engineer, Mr Cooper (I cannot recall his first name. His second in command, the Chief Wireless Technician, was
Mr Baker, who went on to become the RWE at Kippax Depot. The reason as to why I cannot remember the first names of these officers is because you had to address these senior officers at that time by their Mr and surname tag!
Stanton Wireless Depot was the first Regional Wireless Depot to be so constituted. I believe through learning the history of the service from officers already serving in the establishment at the time of my joining, they had informed me that a pioneering gentlemen by the name of Mr Old originally began experiments with Police Radio communications just prior to the second World War with the then Nottingham City Police Force. In 1946 there was what became known as the re-constitution of the service and it was at this juncture that the original title of the Home Office Regional Wireless Service was born, whereby the grades were designated at Wireless Technician, Senior Wireless Technician and Regional Wireless Technician. Upon my original recruitment the RWE was God in his own territory only directly responsible to the then boss, Commander Best, where his headquarters were at Harrow?
The re-constitution was the major step as this was the commencement of the Wireless Grades becoming Crown Civil Servants. From then on there was controversy, in that technicians had to face an Establishment Civil Service Board where some of the then time served staff either passed the board or failed the same. If you failed you became a non-established Civil Servant with no pension rights but served in the appropriate grades to that of the established members. These boards were quite infrequent at the time and yours truly did not become established until 1971.
Equipment in use in the early part of the 1960’s
The first day at Stanton is vividly recalled by the amount of noise emanating from the main workshop. I discovered that this was due to the soak testing and repairs of the Pye PTC114 receiver and transmitter units, which when fitted into a vehicle were mounted into a solid cradle. The noise was being generated by two rotary converters that supplied both the RX and TX units with the necessary HT for the all valve units to function.
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