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Don Halstead's marvellous memories prompted some completely random shoots to pop out of the ground giving a slightly different ‘Comms’ emphasis:

The Bard Hill Hut aka the Winkle Hut - why? -  was my first encounter of three with Baddow, where I had a very happy Student apprentice ‘attachment’ in the mid 60's working there with the lovely Doug ‘the Power’ Jones and his No 2, whose name escapes me, on Linesman Power supplies. These were monstrous devices which were going to need a small crane to lift into their cabinets and I swear the only reason I was there because I was fairly big and No 2 and I could man-handle the brutes into the cabinets before the winch was installed. I can vividly remember the looks of abject horror when the first install happened and we stood back to see that the cabinets were bulging from the weight and we had to swiftly get them out before disaster and then some girder work in the side uprights sorted the problem. Fellow inmates were John Gay whose younger brother was a fellow apprentice, and a gentleman surnamed Barber with a flatulence problem  who could - and did - clear the hut with one parp. I can remember lolling around on the grass outside having a fag waiting for the miasma to clear. The hut also had an incredibly holey floor which allowed us to play a form of ‘golf’ with walking stick, Ping-Pong balls and paper cups in the holes on rainy lunchtimes. 

Quite often ‘lunch’ was taken on the grass outside, and one lunchtime we became aware of a rumpus on the roof of the adjacent ‘B’ block with a naked couple doing circuits with much bad language. It later emerged that said couple used to ‘play away’ on the roof at lunchtime and she had discovered that he was also playing away elsewhere and had gone with the roof keys and a pair of scissors to do a ‘Bobbitt’. Security had to break open the door and they were ushered away in raincoats - very exciting entertainment for a callow apprentice.

I lived on the Moulsham estate in an apprentice house, regularly visited by one Owen Hawkes in his Riley(?), and used to sometimes walk to Baddow

through the estate, and was often picked up along the way by a gentleman with a double -barrelled name, in his Rolls-Royce of some age where I would happily share the back seat with a complete diving suit, including helmet,  who also worked at Baddow and must have recognised me as a fellow worker. It happened several times, and where I am sure I was told who it was I have completely forgotten - was he a Radar luminary?

Ben Lamb, indeed a Doctor of Divinity, with his lovely assistants was also an ardent and valued PERT advocate in Communications, but we too could never afford regular ‘runs’, and would employ coloured crayons until the drawing was illegible.  I can remember one father of young children saying to him  once "if you just colour that in,  it will look so much better" and Ben nearly swallowing his teeth!  We did not have many PhD's in Communications, most of our very clever bods were often ex-apprenticed.  But I can remember the unedifying time when MoD insisted on a PhD signature on Tender responses and we employed "Gas-board Jones"  for just that  role. Thoroughly nice bloke but inevitably clueless in Comms, he didn't last long and we then use to borrow  a Baddow PhD to do the job

Arnold Weinstock was indeed absolutely brutal, the late unlamented Andrew Glasgow was out overnight and doing his gardening leave at Stanmore, to be replaced by a Radar surplus who was possibly worse, followed by the Italian circus.  But Arnold loved the minutiae particularly numbers and I can vividly remember sphincter flutter when he used to phone to check something on Divisional accounts, fortunately rarely but it was that degree of detail that he personally checked and software and computers did not particularly work to his famous six ratios. I also learned to dread the big horse racing meetings as we were doing a contract in Saudi at the time and the customer Sheik was also a gee-gees fan and would whine to Arnold at Ascot or wherever and we would get a visitation from one of his hatchet  men shortly after, really a most unpleasant bunch!

There was a fable doing the rounds after Simpson and Mayo started at the top of GEC that Arnold tottered into Simpsons office under a pile of folders and dumped them on Simpsons desk. "What's this?" asked Simpson. "The Company monthly  Accounts" quoth Arnold. "Ah!" says Simpson, "I employ others to do that for me" - and look where it got us! 

Happy Days, sorry for the ramble!