E.K.Cole Southend-on-Sea & Malmesbury 1939-71 WW2 Secret Radar and the Shadow Factory Collecting and preserving the history of EKCO Electronics / Avionics 1939-1971 Jack Gard Saying that he was an EKCO man through and through and was involved in radar from day one until he retired some 35 years later can best epitomize Jack Gard. Shortly after leaving school in November 1930 Jack Joined the EKCO at Southend as a Junior Laboratory Assistant in what was then known as the 'experimental department' which had been set up by Norman Robertson (N.C. Robertson) to research and develop new models of radios. This department was vital to the growth of EKCO since in those days all manufacturers endeavored to have a new model every year such was the fierce competition in the market place. Tony Martin was already a manager in this department and Jack would almost certainly also have worked with Ted O'Flynn who had started a year before him. By the mid 1930's Jack would have become a junior engineer working on domestic receiver design where he must have excelled since he was selected by Tony Martin in the latter part of 1938 to be one of an elite group chosen to work on what was then the 'top secret' development and productionisation of airborne radar. With the evacuation of Dunkirk at the end of May 1940, the order was given to evacuate Southend and Jack moved to the top-secret Research and Development labs in Malmesbury High Street known as WDU. Jack Gard's WDU pass supplied courtesy of Sue Jameson. Of interest to note is that his occupation is shown as 'scientific instrument maker' this is due to the fact that the real purpose of WDU could not be divulged and his address is shown as 43 High Street whereas Jack lived in the Priory along with the other engineers although for a short while he did live at No. 44 High Street as did Les Pugh. Little detail is known of the work Jack did at WDU except that in 1943 he was known to have been heavily involved in the development of the 'pressurisation' of A.I. Mark VII and Mark VIII to enable these systems to be fitted to high altitude night fighter Mosquito's. This work would have been done in conjunction with R.K. Spencer who was the Chief Chemist and is also known to have developed solutions to the expansion of oil in transformers at high altitude etc. It is also safe to assume that Jack would also have worked in tandem with TRE in developing A.I. Mark IX and Cyril Lingwood remembers on more than one occasion going with Jack to Malvern (the latter home of TRE) with prototype parts and assemblies. Even in 1945, the secrecy remained and below is a copy of a document Jack always had to carry with him showing that he was involved in essential war work. Supplied courtesy of Sue Jameson. During the war, it was not all work since Jack was a keen guitar player and often played with Cyril Lingwood in the Altona Band and Cyril recalls that Jack was a keen fan of Django Reinhardt and often listened to music of the 'Quintette du Hot club de France' while staying at the Priory – in fact Jack's guitar playing style was probably heavily influenced by Reinhardt. While there were relentless long hours and a six-day working week, Jack found time to court and marry 'Margaret Wilson' who at that time was in charge of the telephone switchboard at Cowbridge House. At the end of the war, Jack was called back to Southend to help post war radio production get started but this was not to last for long since by December 1946 he found himself back at Malmesbury in the hastily reformed WDU in the High Street, which shortly afterwards moved to Cowbridge House with Jack and family moving yet again to the 'Pre-Fabs' in Cowbridge Crescent. This was undoubtedly to begin work on Cloud and Collision Warning Radar where TRE and EKCO worked in collaboration to research and build the world's first 'Weather radar', which became the E38 system following extensive trials in a RAF Shorts Sunderland flying on what was then known as 'the empire routes'. Jack would have flown on many of these flights not only ensuring that the system worked well but also training the operators in the use of the equipment. By 1949 this system was available for sale and it is believed that the DH Comets were so fitted. Evolving out of this system was ASV Mark 19 and records show that both Jack and Frank Oxborough were heavily involved in 'service trials' of this system. By this time Jack had been promoted to become a 'Senior Engineer' and was in charge of the radar lab located in the 'Orangery' and under him (to name a few) he had Jack Halsall, John Smith, Frank Oxborough, Frank Burnill, Renton Hudson, Norman Tingey, Mike Start, Jeff Saunders, Dave Snelgrove, John Jewsbury etc. From 1951 onwards this team worked hard on developing the E120 system, which entered service in 1955. Jack was involved in many of the test flights on the Bristol Britannia and records show that he traveled extensively in the test and route proving flights of this aircraft. At the Christmas 1955 staff party, Eric Cole presented Jack with a gold watch for his 25 years service to the company. Sue Jameson (his daughter) still has the watch, which keeps very good time and is now a valued family possession. Watch presented to Jack Gard - Courtesy of Sue Jameson Note: The presentation of watches was organised by the publicity department who were provided with information by the personnel department, they in turn liased with the appropriate directors secretary where the member of staff was 'senior staff' or the departmental manager where the person was more lowly ranked. Eric Cole took great delight in giving the award to 'pre-war' starters and senior engineers etc. R.A. Jones who were the premier jewellers in Southend on Sea had the contact to supply the watches and a lady called Lena Johnson (who was the PPS to Mr York) used to not only give the order - complete with wording but also used to collect the watches after inspecting them to ensure the name and dates etc. had been correctly inscribed. She also made sure that the recipient, photographer; EKC and the watch were at the right place at the right time for the presentation. By 1956, Jack was representing the company on the IATA (the International Air Transport Association) technical committee and attended many of their technical meetings where 'weather radar' was discussed as well as promoting 'weather radar' at the Farnborough Air Show. Photograph Courtesy of Southend Museum Service This photograph shows Jack Gard (on right) with Phil Stride about to set off for the 9th Technical meeting of IATA held in May 1956 in San Remo (Italy) using the company Anson. Of note is the instrument in Phil Stride's right hand. This is a camera attachment and hood to fit over the radar screen in order to take 'in flight photos' of cloud formations, typical of which is the photo below, which shows the radar display on the 20 Nm range and shows a strong 'ISO Echo' return from the cloud formation to port at 6 to 10 Nm, which indicates that this cloud is both turbulent and has a potential to be a heavy rain bearing cloud. Through that late 1950's Jack continued to head up the weather radar team and was instrumental in developing the E120 and its evolution into the E160 where he again did many of the Anti Icing Flights of the Comet IV as well as 'route proving' flights. With the relocation of the radar teams from Malmesbury to Southend in late 1960, Jack found himself back where he had started some 30 years earlier and probably in the same area but having a new role, this time looking after 'Post Design Services' (PDS), which was very much a support service to existing customers of EKCO equipment. This was a logical role for Jack to have and built on his already well-established contacts within both the armed services as well as the airlines. Jack had a team including (at various times) Frank Oxborough, Ken Dawes, Len Lumber, Dennis Williams, John Jewsbury and Bernard Price and they not only provided and 'on site' 'product support' for the equipment as and when it was needed, they also ensured that the operators were properly trained in its maintenance and use. PDS also acted as a valuable conduit between the customer and the design teams so that whenever a problem was found 'in the field', this could be fed back to the design team and a solution found (sometimes a design change or improvement) in the shortest possible time. It followed that as new equipment was brought into production, Jack and his team became actively involved. Helicopter radar being demonstrated to customer with Jack Gard on right Photograph from the Jack Gard Collection Courtesy of Sue Jameson and Dawn Scully Following the demise of EKCO in 1970, Jack again relocated to Crawley where the remnants of the company was absorbed into M.E.L. Limited (Mullard Electronic Components), which was part of the Philips organization. Here Jack, by then very much a figurehead looking after 'Product Support' brought valuable business to the company through his well established contacts within the airline industry (see the letter below). Notwithstanding this, by 1973 Jack felt that he needed a new challenge so he decided to take early retirement at age 58 and bought a garage just outside Marlborough in Wiltshire. With Jack having been involved with airborne radar for some 34 years and one of the fathers of weather radar it is not surprising that he was a well respected figure within the industry and typical of the letters received by the company at the time of his retirement is the letter below from Trans-Australia Airlines. Letter from the Jack Gard Collection Courtesy of Sue Jameson and Dawn Scully Jack ran the garage near Marlborough for approximately two years and was then persuaded to join an old EKCO friend, Ron Parry who had set up a business in Newbury manufacturing Densitometers (a machine used by the photographic industry and hospitals to measure the density of light through film). Jack, of course, headed up the research and development side and continued with the company until his early seventies when he finally decided to retire - again. Jack Gard died in January 1998 Written by Chris Poole with grateful assistance of Sue Jameson and Dawn Scully – March 2007 Ekco Menu 1 [] Site Map WDU 40-45 WDU notes Interception Jostle Jammer Listeners Priory House Ekco Ansons 1945-1950 Ekco E38 Nucleonics ASV 19 A40 Project Radar Ranging ARAA Fireflash Ekco AI MK 20 Ekco E120 Ekco E160 Red Steer MDI Systems NSD Rochford Time Line Home Front Domestic Scrapbook Automatic MC Home Guard Useful Data D&E Southend Workers 1943 WDU MAP Schematic's Research Labs WW2 Radar Radar Guide Electronics Ekco Menu 2 [] Andrews G Bossom D Couchy G Davis T Dring G Gard J Graham D Henstridge R Hubbard R Leonard J Lingwood C Lipman M Moltino A Moxon R O'Flynn E Poole C Poole M Reeves R Smith D Smith L Spencer R Taylor C Thomas T Thompson E Terry P Wadsworth A Wedd M Ekco Menu 3 [] Acres Brown Cayless Cole Dawes Dyer Robertson Ken Sims Derek Bartlett Rob Wilson William Gibbs Stanley Day Charles Exton Cyril Lingwood Dickie Granger Daphne Baker Betty Webb Phyllis Elms Ekco Girls ESSC SOS Presentations Documents Photographs R Bombs C Ballad C House Cleeve House Priory House Pre Fabs Comet 1949 People Wimbolt Southend War Book Millennium Magazine Stories Radio Ekco India Guest Book Original Site Ekco Menu 4 [] Ekco Gallery What's New Bill's Book Bob's Book Charles' Book Multimap Downloads Memories MIMA Ekco Menu 5 [close] EKCO LINKS Enquiries | Updates