I was fascinated reading some of the stories of EKCO Radar on the website and they brought back so many memories of things I'd forgotten years ago. |
I joined EKCO at Southend in 1942/3 although most of the factory had been evacuated to either Aylesbury, Malmesbury or Aston Clinton. |
The photograph of the Southend works in wartime reminded me of the nights spent 'on the roof' taking my turn fire-watching and walking around the adjacent Priory Park in the dark was not fun.
I was allocated to office work in the temporary Drawing Office. Mr Burtenshaw was in overall charge of the D/O although he was based at Aston Clinton and I also remember writing to Stan Lind and Ron Kemp (I think) in the D/O at Malmesbury. As production had just restarted at Southend on Type 19 wireless sets and wiring looms for Lancaster bombers we had to keep asking Aston Clinton for drawings and eventually we were allocated 6 draftsmen together with 3 tracers who were 'arty' people conscripted in because of their watercolour painting skills and not their knowledge of mechanical or electrical items (of which they knew very little). |
EKCO Head office and factory at Southend-on-Sea circa 1941 |
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Because they had been told to faithfully trace what was on the original, I remember one incident, which caused quite a laugh, when a lady tracer faithfully traced the outline of a fly, which had been swotted on the original. |
Lancaster wiring loom (Pilots panel) at EKCO Southend circa 1944 |
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Working in the D/O came in very handy in 1944, when I got married since my bridesmaids dresses were made from 'rejected tracings', which had been washed out and this was covered with 'lace' - coupon free from Petticoat Lane market near to Liverpool Street Station in London. I left in 1948 to start the family and I wanted to return to work in the early 1950's but in those days no part time workers were allowed in the offices so I went into the factory making Television's, I loved working there and found it far more interesting than writing letters and filing etc. My skills at reading technical drawings helped together with a good memory so I soon went 'full time' and became a supervisor.
I joined the entertainments committee of the ESSC and well remember the children's Christmas parties where there were mounds of sandwiches made with sliced bread, margarine and tins of Raspberry jam although there was also jelly trifles and fruit cake. |
Father Christmas always had a present for each child. |
Funnily, my main memories of the Christmas parties are stopping the fights between the bigger boys, picking up the sandwiches form under the tables and finding both the coats and the parents at the end. |
Thinking of the ESSC, I also loved the Saturday night dances, which was always helped by a good band and the fact that we all knew one another. In those days we had no problems driving home - no breathalyser. |
EKCO also had a good Cricket team in those days and many times I remember providing 'tea' (as best as we could) for the visiting team. |
In the late 50's I got to know Ken Hendry who had started up the Avionics Section in the R&D Labs at Southend and he would often stop by and proudly show off new bits and pieces. I well remember him showing me a small box with 'transistors', which he told me would do away with those valves (glass bottles he said), he was so excited by these and he told me they had been sent to him from Malmesbury. |
When the Rochford factory opened in 1960, my husband went to work there where they were doing both avionic and nucleonic work. To be nearer the site, we bought a bungalow in Rochford and shortly after this I again left work. After about a year, Ken Hendry heard that I was not working and asked me to work at Rochford as a supervisor, which I did and again I loved it. The work was so much superior to the Television work I'd done previously.
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Rochford factory site 1960 |
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Towards the end of 1960, we heard that Malmesbury was relocating to Southend and Rochford. As we had just settled into our ways of doing things, we were not looking forward to this at all but in the event all was well. |
After a couple of years my name was put forward to run a section in the R&D laboratories at Southend working on 'first off's and bit and pieces for the engineering labs. This was wonderful since it also allowed me to renew some old friendships with people I had previously known in the television D/O. |
In the mid 60's I found myself working on the E390 project under Eric Golding, which was the radar destined for the Concorde, here I was with 6 good operators and we made the systems for the first 2 Concorde's. As part of this I remember going to a Seminar at the Café Royal in London, which was held for all those involved in Concorde. |
Shortly after this, the effect of the PYE takeover became apparent, which brought many unwelcome changes and I ended up being offered a job on the factory floor making television - needless to say I left. |
By the end of 1970 it was apparent that all radar manufacture was going to be relocated to M.E.L. Limited (owned by Philips Electronics) in Crawley West Sussex and my second husband 'Roy Henstridge' was offered a job there. This we accepted, so we upped and moved to Crawley. |
Roy Henstridge (centre) at Malmesbury model shop party circa 1956 |
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Again Ken Hendry heard I was there and persuaded M.E.L. to offer me a job as a supervisor there, which I of course took. With various reorganisations radar work ended up moving to one of their associate companies in Scotland, so Roy and I moved there teaching radar assembly techniques, which was not so bad since we met some of our old engineer friends as well as quite a few 'test' men, some of whom I'd worked with way back in my television days. |
I'm 80 this year (2006) and my local library gave a party to all the townsfolk who were 80. We all had to say something of what we did from the war onwards and when Concorde was mentioned, I mentioned my contribution to the radar, which resulted in a lot of men telling me about their radar experiences in the war. |
Rose Henstridge (née Fisher) November 2006 |
Layout by spitsortie for ekco-electronics.co.uk |
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