GEC Copsewood (Telephone Works, Stoke)

Although I worked at GEC, Spon Street in the 1980s, then Helen Street in the 90s, a few of these names are familiar. Barry Mundean became our Test Manager at Helen St, and earned the nickname of "HIG" from his regular question "how's it going?'. Peter Brown, if it's the same person, became overall chief of the Transmission group, and oversaw the thousands of redundancies in the early 90s - although with hindsight it was probably necessary to keep GPT alive at that stage. I briefly came across others too, although I didn't actually know them to talk to, like Mike Shearer & Bill Torrance, and I think one of my apprentice placements in the early 80s was with Ron Irwin - not exactly one of my favourites if I've remembered correctly! I didn't see Cliff Titterall (not sure of the spelling) mentioned, but I know he had a connection with the Test Equipment department.

My first post here, so apologies if I'm breaking any etiquette rules (then again, I am originally from Leicester, so I guess it's to be expected :-) ) Cliff Titterall was indeed connected to Test Equipment, as when I was a fresh-faced Technician Engineer in 1984, he was the team leader for the Test Equipment team for the Ghz Radio and Multiplexer department, up on the 5th floor of Spon Street. It was still very 'traditional' up there - we sat in rows of benches, facing Cliff at the front of the workshop. As a 19-year-old, this was my first placement doing 'real' work and I was incredibly nervous. As it was, everyone was really friendly and made a lot of allowances - even the grumpy chap who ran the stores and wanted to know chapter and verse of why I wanted (e.g.) a twist drill bit. I was assigned to work for Brian Wathen, who was a lovely bloke and helped along a lot. I was amazed that we were allowed to smoke in the workshop and so brought my own ashtray in - felt very 'grown up'! Keeping with the traditional workshop feel, we had a lady come down from the canteen every day with a tea urn and some bacon batches kept warm on top of the urn. As the training school was at Spon Street (Ken Marshall and Dave Jackson in charge of us Tech. Engs), I have fond memories of the place.

Super photo Prof. At the very end of that roadway (called Telephone Road - offices on the left, workshops & wiring rooms on the right), if you turned left at the end, you went past a security hut, through an exit gateway into Crescent Avenue, and could turn first right into Uxbridge Avenue to go towards Binley Road.