After a couple of false starts, in 1949 I found myself being interviewed and accepted by E K Cole in Malmesbury. My first impression was the sense of informality and the environment in which this house was located, surrounded as it was by fairly extensive grounds with many trees. Although perhaps not a major factor in job satisfaction, the approach to the house to start a day's work was certainly pleasant.
On driving into the premises, there was no conspicuous notice advertising the company name, no mention of a car park, no reserved parking spaces, nor even marked parking bays. Outwardly the house still looked much as its appearance might have been imagined in the balmy days before world wars made their impact on England. A large and attractive residence in the heart of the Wiltshire countryside, originally a fitting seat for a rich member of the aristocracy, had all the features one would expect. Standing in large grounds and screened from the road by trees, the house was approached by a drive of "suitable" length.
The heavily oak panelled hall and staircase of appropriate proportions, which originally provided a fitting first impression for the family's visitors, were still intact, beyond the large and imposing entrance. Although considerable extensions had been built on to the old ground floor reception rooms, in order to house the main Production area and a substantial Drawing Office, this had been done unobtrusively. The considerable number of bedrooms were large and suitable for laboratories, housing most of the R & D staff.
Grand Staircase Cowbridge House 2004
Photo courtesy of Maurice Wedd
Each of the main bedrooms provided adequate area for at least one closed-off office and bench space for perhaps half a dozen engineers, together with their equipment, which usually included a number of very large Cossor and Tektronix oscilloscopes. Particularly because of their bulk and weight, these were invariably mounted on trolleys, which occupied significant floor space in each working area. The size of individual items of electronic equipment in this era was generally much larger than at present, although of course the capabilities of the early laboratory hardware were hardly sufficient to be able to compare present day equipment.
Nevertheless, although adequate working space was sometimes difficult to find, there was generally little problem in this respect, by comparison with much more modern conditions. More office space for dealing with paperwork, and particularly as quiet space for thought on the knottier technical matters, would however have been desirable. The eventual provision of some attic space as a Reading Room/Library was made available although this was only a partial solution to the problem, mainly because of its remote location.
What had originally been separate quarters for the servants, including a number of bedrooms (and a private chapel), most of which were quite large enough to form small combined laboratories and offices for us engineers. The number of occupants of such rooms was no more than four individuals and ideally only one or two. Thus, those engineers working in the servants' quarters tended to have an advantage over the occupants of the larger rooms, in terms of inadvertent interruption by their colleagues. The walls, including the original internal partitions of the building were massive, forming fairly effective acoustic screening between different areas of the house and thereby ensuring little interference from outside the immediate working area.
There was of course usually no problem whatever from noise produced outside the building. There was certainly no traffic noise. Such sounds as were heard if one opened a window, were typically rural, such as bird song or lowing of the cows, which sometimes used part of the factory drive as their route to the local farm for milking. Nevertheless, the ability to open a window in order to clear tobacco smoke or simply to provide some fresh air in a room, was not seen as some great feature of the working environment and certainly not a privilege.
The lack of this simple option in a contemporary air-conditioned office, has often been noted as highly undesirable and a reminder of this small but significant advantage of earlier times. Certainly, with the exception of concern over a lack of office space, I have no recollection of any serious complaint about the working environment represented by the country house, except perhaps some comments regarding the whiff from the septic tank, and the shortcomings of the toilets, which were very prone to blockages!
Not all the facilities required, could be accommodated within or as extensions to the original house. However a number of the outbuildings associated with it had been positioned conveniently, just across the drive which ran past and parallel with the front of the house, and these had been either converted or extended to fulfil requirements.
The most important areas within this group were the Model Shop, pre-production Wiring and Assembly Shop, the relatively new Nucleonics Laboratory and the Paint Spray and Plating Shops. Of these, only the last two, positioned at the end of the group and remotest from the house itself involved a substantial walk of perhaps a hundred yards and the risk of a dousing in wet weather. Fortunately however, visits to these areas were not a frequent necessity and could generally be arranged to take place when it was not raining!
The Model Shop on the other hand, was central to the fabrication of all the tangible piece-parts; since these went onto form the development models designed by the Engineers, often in conjunction with the Drawing Office. The close collaboration between these three departments often meant the physical movement of the people involved, between those areas. It was fortunate therefore that the Model Shop in particular, was in relatively close proximity to the other two.
The centre of Malmesbury itself was about a mile from the factory site, and though this was the location of a small cafe where a cheap and simple lunch could be obtained, the cafe could not possibly have catered for all the EKCO employees who might have liked to use it for their midday meal. Although a pleasant walk in fine weather for the fit, the distance to the cafe was in any case too great to be generally acceptable within our allotted one hour lunch break, and in many cases the cost of the cafe meal every day would have also been too expensive.
A Works and Staff Canteen (as well as a Senior Staff restaurant) were provided on the factory site, and quickly accessible from the house and many employees used these, not only at lunch time but also during a ten-minute coffee break at mid morning and afternoon.
