Thanks for the e-mail about the Malmesbury web site and the history of EKCO.
Although I never worked or visited the Malmesbury, Aylesbury or Aston Clinton sites, I did know many of the people who worked there and who subsequently transferred to Southend and then to Crawley when Philips moved their military electronics activities to MEL in 1971.
Weather radar was still serviced at (MEL) Crawley for many years (after 1971), both for commercial airlines and the military. I worked on the Lightweight Helicopter Radar and its many derivatives, both at Southend and Crawley. 'The V-bomber tail warning radar' was still the subject of PDS contracts in the late sixties at Southend, with people like Ken Dawes, Cyril Drew and Jack Gard to name but a few. Jack Halsall, Bill Graville and others looked after the commercial gear.
There are many other ex-Malmesbury people that I knew at Southend, e.g. R.K.Spencer, Tony Martin, Phil Stride, V.J.Cox, John Yarrow, Fred Ellis, Jack Bishop-Leggett, Sid Parr, Pauline Durrent, Alan Moltino, Les Pugh, Cyril Lingwood, Maurice Wedd, Norman Wall, Ken Simms, Ron Beavan, Gordon Simon, Bernard Price and many others, including your father Dennis.
I was very interested to hear that Pauline Durrent is still alive. When being addressed she always preferred "Miss Durrent".
Another person who was very particular as to how he was addressed was V.J.Cox. If you were fairly senior, "VJ" was permissible, while lesser mortals were expected to use "Mr. Cox". Special friends and respected colleagues were allowed to use "Jim". Nobody was allowed to call him by his first name.
At Southend, I worked for Cyril Drew but was interviewed for the job by V.J.Cox, a somewhat daunting experience! In fact, we almost had cross words at the interview and I left his office assuming that I had blown my chances of employment. Imagine my surprise when a letter arrived a couple of weeks later offering me a job at a salary greater that that which I had asked for. "VJ" always was a very difficult man to understand.
Although my continuous service with the Company dated from 1967, I did in fact serve an apprenticeship with E.K.Cole Ltd., beginning in 1956, subsequently becoming an engineer in the Export TV Development Laboratory, run by E.W. (Ted) Maynard and after that in the Colour TV Development Laboratory. I left in 1966 to go to Marconi in Chelmsford but returned to EKCO Avionics in 1967 and the rest is history, as they say. Had I not had broken service, I would have served 45 years, with the pension to go with it, when I retired in 2001.
However, 34 years pension is still quite good. I have lost touch with most of my erstwhile colleagues but still exchange Christmas cards with Dave and Betty Richards. I regularly see Brian Couchy, who was never actually based at Malmesbury but did spend some time there early in his career on secondment and actually married Phil Stride's secretary, Gill.
Tony Wadsworth – August 2004
