By Chris Poole – September 2008
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Following the evacuation of Southend in June 1940, the village of Aston Clinton in Buckinghamshire became the headquarters of the directors and managers of E.K. Cole for the duration of WW2. |
The site of the HQ was in the house and grounds of the Green Park Hotel, which was originally Aston Clinton House, which had been extensively renovated and altered in the 1850's by the Rothschild family as part of their estates in the area. |
The house was believed to be the home of Lady Rothschild and upon her death in 1910, was left to her two daughters who mostly used it as a holiday home. Sometime in the 1930's the house was disposed of and first became the 'Howard Park Hotel' before being renamed the Green Park Hotel' mainly because of the surrounding parkland known as Green Park. Prior to the company moving in, extensive alterations were made to the stable block turning this into laboratories for both radar and communication's research and in another area known as the tower, a small machine shop was set up to make any prototype parts required by the engineers. In the main house, some of the bedrooms were set aside for visiting managers from other sites (such as Malmesbury) while others were used for staff.
Altogether the total number of EKCO personnel at Aston Clinton probably numbered circa 100 with some of these being locally recruited people. |
General view of Green Park Hotel – photo taken 1943 |
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The Green Park Hotel was selected from a short list of potential sites supplied by the Ministry of Aircraft Production and as Derek Cole recounts, a note of high comedy involving Eric Cole illuminated the history of this vital move. Malmesbury was already working, but much more capacity was needed. Having been given a list of available empty properties, Eric Cole set out on a tour of these sites but unknown to him, every Ministry was doing the same and unbeknown to him, one of the first sites he enquired at had already been taken over by the Army. As this was at the time that the nation was in a great panic remembering General Franco's claim that he had a 'Fifth Column' inside Madrid, he was promptly arrested as a spy! The upshot of this was a whole day in arranging the move was lost until the village policeman eventually released him. The good thing to come out of this encounter was the fact that Eric Cole was issued with an access all areas high level pass by the Ministry, which was to come in handy on more than one occasion. |
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The first task before anybody could move in was to make the hotel suitable for the influx of the various departments who would move to Aston Clinton and EKCO's own maintenance department did the majority of this work.
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| View of the stables before conversion to laboratories photo May 1940 |
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View of stables after conversion to laboratories
photo circa 1941 |
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| Drawing office in tower – photo taken in 1943 |
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| Photo of machine shop in the Tower block taken in 1943 |
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The main house did not need much modification apart from some additional electrical sockets and this is where the administration departments set themselves up. The following two photos illustrate the use of the house.
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Notwithstanding the change of use of some of the rooms, efforts were made to retain some of the rooms for their original use and the following photos show the games room and the dining room. |
| The bought ledger department in the former winter garden circa late 1940 |
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The accounts machine room in the former ballroom – photo 1943 |
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| Games room in basement – photo 1943 |
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As with all the other EKCO sites, the staff at Aston Clinton had to take turns on fire watch duty two nights a week and a watch post was set up on the roof of the building known as the 'tower'. Eric Cole ever fair to his employee's insisted on doing his turn at fire watching. Should the air raid sirens go, the designated shelter was in the basement/wine cellar. History does not record how well stocked the wine cellar was before or after a raid ! |
The rules required everybody to repair to the cellars when the siren sounded, but as no bombs ever seemed likely to fall in the countryside, over time the staff became somewhat complacent, which lead one night to a mass refusal to obey the call to go to the cellars resulting in the manager ringing Eric Cole at home and asking what he should do. Realising this needed his personal attention; Eric Cole wearily struggled into his car and set out. In due course the firewatchers could see his car travelling along the edge of the Chiltern Hills. Just as it turned down the slope towards Aston Clinton, they heard an aeroplane overhead and then the dread shriek of a falling bomb.
To their relief, he drove up to the front door without incident. A few days later a bomb squad dug an unexploded bomb out of the mud in the ditch at the front entrance. Never again as an air raid siren ignored. Eric Cole rented a house on the outskirts of a nearby village called Great Missenden and Derek Cole recounts that on the night of the invasion scare (7th September 1940) the 'high level access all areas' pass issued by the Ministry to his father came in useful when he produced it while, driving home through the Bucks countryside that night with his wife (Muriel Cole) and Derek's Aunt and Uncle in the car. Unbeknown to them, because of the invasion scare, all cars were being stopped by the police who were doing identity card checks but when the policeman saw Eric Cole's pass, he promptly stepped back, saluted, and said 'You may proceed, Sir, but I should warn you we think German paratroops are landing'. |
| 1943 photo of the ARP post on top of the 'tower'.
Note the communications aerial array |
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Derek recalls that while his father never mentioned it, his Aunt's account was that on arrival home, which had a good line of fire, Eric Cole got out the rifle and shot gun for which he held licences and Derek's Uncle (who was called up and trained in 1918 but never reached the front) took the rifle to the back of the house where the field of fire was best while Eric Cole went to a front window and both their wives stood by as loaders. They stood on watch all that night, but as we know it was a false alarm. |
As the administrative headquarters of the company, Aston Clinton was where many meetings took place including many technical meetings particularly those concerning the re-engineering of TR1154/1155 for airborne use. These sets were an original Marconi design that had a steel chassis, whereas the EKCO airborne version had an aluminium chassis for weight saving as well as other modifications either suggested by EKCO or required by the RAF. |
Right is the front page of the minutes of a technical meeting held at Aston Clinton on the 12th November 1940 regarding the TR1154/1155 – supplied courtesy Phil Racher. (Click the image for enlarged view)
From Eric Cole's office at Aston Clinton he directed the war effort in the various EKCO factory's spread around the country and he told Derek Cole (his son) that his reports went direct to the Minister of Aircraft Production and in the final years of the war, he made frequent visits to Sir Stafford Cripps, later Attlee's 'Iron Chancellor'. Eric was never summoned to No 10, but on occasions Cripps would say 'Winston will want to see this'. Over time Eric Cole became good friends with Sir Stafford Cripps and one by-product of this association was the creation of the Monopolies Commission when Eric told Stafford Cripps how he felt that the public had been cheated by the price rigging of the lamp and valve cartels between the wars. |
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Cripps on hearing this apparently went from being the superbly able minister controlling Aircraft Production to the furiously angry politician, the result being that as the President of the Board of Trade in the post war Labour Government, Cripps' first action was the establishment of the Monopolies Commission. |
Fortunately, what could have been the most important function of Eric Cole's office at Aston Clinton was never required. His office was designated as the command post for relief efforts if Aylesbury was bombed and, as Chairman of the Relief Committee, Eric was appointed to co-ordinate the actions of the Chief Constable, the Fire Chief, the Ambulance Head, the Town Clerk etc. At the end of the war, Eric thought it absurd to be given a scroll of honour for services which were not required 'I am not a Boy Scout collecting badges' he said indignantly to his son who felt sure that his father regarded his part in the defeat of Hitler the most important thing he ever did. |
By 1941, the long hours both overworking and travelling led to Eric Cole having to take enforced time off on doctor's orders, which led to a crisis of confidence in the Ministry of Aircraft Production and bickering amongst the EKCO directors one of whom who engaged in office politics and is reported to have plotted to remove Eric from the company and take control. |
This situation apparently concerned the ministry so much that we now know that consideration was given by the MAP to taking over the company so as to ensure the continuity of supply of both radar and communication equipment such was the vital nature of both products to the war effort. |
The situation was resolved by the board of directors removing this person who had been a supremely competent (but ambitious) director who had played a major part in EKCO success in the 1930's At the end of the war, the Green Park Hotel was handed back to the owners although the building was demolished in the late 1950's and replaced with the Green Park Centre, which is under the control of Buckinghamshire CC who acquired the property on the proviso that it be used for educational purposes. |
Many of the original ornamental features of the extended garden still remain although all that remain of the building is the stables, which is used as part of the training centre.
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Layout by spitsortie for ekco-electronics.co.uk |
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