Can you tell us of your first recollection of the telephone?

The first telephone I used was when I started work in 1944, and they were the upright models with a hand set on, and you lifted them up. I don't think they were the wind type; we had got passed them at that stage. The ones I used they were the lift up type. You lifted it up to your mouth and the ear piece into your ear. Then later on, what, 4 or 5 years later, they came to the ordinary black phones with the hand set. But in the telephone boxes they were ordinary black boxes with an A and a B button. Can you remember those?

Are they the buttons where one is for if someone answers and one if they don't?

Yes, that's nearly right. You put your money... it was tuppence in those days, well at least it was when I used them, you pressed the A button to let your money in and the B button to talk. I don't know how you got your money back if they didn't answer, you know I can't remember that, but you obviously did, and from then, well that's the early ones that's all you're really interested in because then you get onto the more modern ones and eventually the mobiles. [The A button allowed you to talk, and captured the money; the B button allowed you to get the money back if there was no reply.]

When did you first get a telephone in your house?

In my house?

Yes.

Quite late, 1976, when we moved to Scotland. There was a phone in the house because it was a company house, and I took the phone over in 1976. Before that when we lived in various parts of the country, Yorkshire, Wales. We always used the local phone boxes which were in most cases within a few hundred yards of the house.

What happened if you wanted incoming calls?

We didn't. You didn't, you see, there was a lot more letter writing in those days. I mean, I would write. My parents, when they retired lived in Somerset, so we would write. I would write probably once a week, and my Farther never wrote letters but my mother used to write back once a week on average; and that is how we communicated. The same with my wife's relations and that is how we went on. The fact we moved to Scotland 500 miles away from our nearest relations we would have needed a phone; and of course we did.

Can you describe your first memory of the house you grew up in?

The house I grew up in: I can only go from 4 years old.

Oh yes that's fine.

It was a house we had built in Derbyshire, specially built, not a big one. It was detached, which was unusual in 1930, detached house, 3 bedrooms, fairly large gardens, because land was cheap in those days, land didn't cost anything so we had a very large garden... a fairly modern house in that we had fire places in every room, always coal fires, even in the bedrooms there were fire places, 'cause there were no electric fire places in those days, if you are going back to the 1930's. So we had coal fires; there was mains water; mains drainage which was all very modern in those days. We had electricity which ran at 30 cycles, Do you know what a cycle of electricity is?

No, afraid not.

Well the normal mains supply today is 50 cycles per second on AC. We had 30 cycles AC, alternating current from the local coal and iron works, and they supplied the whole area for hundreds and thousands of people in north Derbyshire. So we had electricity which was overhead power lines, very reliable, a hapenny a unit, I still remember that, which was very good and very reliable. So we did have quite a few electrical appliances, mainly lighting, eventually electric fires, the 2 bar fires; that is later on not when we first moved into the house. Later on of course we had radios which were mains eventually. We had battery driven radios to start with. You had 2 batteries, glass batteries with a handle on. One was connected to the radio, usually quite a large box, ours was a Bush, which they still make now, and you took one battery to the local garage or shop, in our case the garage, to be charged up whilst the other battery was connected to supply the radio. And you changed these over as one ran low, and you knew it had ran down because you couldn't get any sound. You took that off, and the women did this as well, just 2 connections at the back; and then they would take it to the garage to charge it up for one old penny. Remember this was a lot of money then, that was when a man's wage was around £ 2 a week. Then in 1940 we had our first mains radio, which we bought from the Co-op. It was their own make, quite large but very reliable, lasted us certainly until my parents moved down to Somerset from Derbyshire when my Farther retired. So it lasted 12 years at least.

And was the radio an important factor in family life?

Yes, very much so, particularly for my parents, as I was studying for qualifications at the time, so I didn't get much time to listen. But they certainly... My mother liked the radio, because she was at home all day. So yes, it was a really big thing to us, it was as big to us then as a television is to you now. We didn't get our first TV, which was black and white, when we lived in Poole. We got it 1961. It was a Murphy, and it was a very good quality. It was very expensive; you'd pay as much as you do now for a colour Television as you would for our Murphy then.

So they were quite good?

Oh yes, this was one of the first ones, I think it was 21" which was very large in those days, because of course the original ones that I saw - we didn't have one - were little ones, 6" I think. My Auntie had one so I did see them, but ours was quite a big one, a very good one, black and white, which lasted 20 years. Then we went to a colour television when we moved to Scotland. We needed a new one because of the reception and we got a Sony colour television which lasted me another 20 years. And I have just got a new one now to come here.

TV's then: you didn't have remotes and things did you?

Oh no, no remotes at all on black and white televisions and no remotes on the colour television and we got that in 1980. We have just got the new one here, Panasonic, and that has got a remote control and that's the first we have had. Before that you always had to get up and change the channel, and you had to alter the tuning yourself, the same as you do now on the small portable televisions. I have a caravan here now, which is parked out at Wareham, we brought it here when we moved down, and we have the small TV in there and we have to tune this. When we go up to Norfolk or Malvern for a week, we have to tune it to the local station, but I do this [gestures towards TV]by remote control, as it is far easier.

Was it a certain person's job within the household to change the channel, or just generally be in control of the TV?

Well, the actual tuning I always did, as my wife is not technically minded at all. She is very good domestically though, marvellous cook! I would tune the things, but she can operate the set, and the remote controls of course she loves them. She can switch on and turn it over, but she wouldn't know how to tune it.

When you were younger, did your father always work, and did your mother ever work as well?

My father worked from the age of 11. He started work in County Durham, and he worked at the local manufacturing works, which it all was up to then, all coal mines and manufacturing works. He lived in a little village near the city of Durham, and he used to walk 4 miles with his father to work each day at 6 o'clock in the morning - and he started at 11 - and he did about 50 or 60 hours a week. He served his apprenticeship, went on eventually to get jobs. He was in the Durham light infantry in the Great War. He was manager of a munitions factory at Rotherham, which employed 5,000 women turning out shells in Rotherham, as he lived near there at the time. Then he went all over the country, different jobs engineering, and then he ended up with a firm called John Brown and Company, who built the Q.E. 2, and Q.E. 1, near Sheffield. And he was the Mechanical Inspecting Engineer until the day he retired; but he was out of work for two years in the 1930 depression.

And was that hard for your family?

Very hard, because we lived in a caravan, my mother tells me - I would have been very young then - that there were 3 boys in a caravan in a field in the Midlands somewhere, and it was hard. She told me at times we lived on two and sixpence a week, now that would be today... it was probably several pounds in today's money. But that was the very lowest point we got to, and she did tell me that we often lived for a day on soup. It was hard, but they were tough people. My father and mother lived well into their 90's, and my mother's mother lived to be 97.

Did your mother ever work when you were younger?

My mother, she worked in the early days. She was very talented. She worked in Birmingham with Samuels the jewelers, in one of their very big factories. And she was making jewelry, as far as I can remember, for 2 or 3 years when she was in her twenties. And then she got married, of course, and there were 3 of us, and so she gave up. She was asked to go to work during the war, all women were asked to if they could, and she wasn't all that strong so she declined. She was taken before a tribunal to answer why she wasn't prepared to work, because most of the women did work, they had to, but she said she was bringing up 3 boys, plus a husband who worked in vital engineering at that time. His firm built the midget submarine which sank the German battle ship, the "Turpitz". He actually was on the very technical side and the inspection side of the midget submarine. So he was working probably 60 or 70 hours a week, and my mother was very busy looking after us, so she wasn't made to work. They let her off on the basis that she was running a domestic household of 4 men, because by then we were working. I was the youngest and we were all working.

Who did the cleaning in your house, was it always your mother or did you or any other members of your family help out?

No, always my mother. She had, this is another electrical item which she had, a cleaner. It was a Electrolux, not an upright, it was a tube one, which are quite recent, in fact I think they still make them. Yes the Electrolux cylinder cleaner with the usual hoses, very efficient, very good; she used to do it all. We had window cleaners to do the windows, because it was a house you see.

She did all the cooking. My father never did any cooking. He couldn't even boil a kettle. (I can, by the way!) So she did all the cooking; so, of course, she was very busy. The appliances, of course, were limited: no pressure cookers or anything like that, no toasters. She had a gas cooker which was new with the house, of course. And I remember, we had a new washing machine, it was a Dean, which was all the go then. It was their latest model - this was just before the last war started - and it was gas fired, although it was hand operated. Now I used to do this occasionally 'cause it was quite heavy; you operated a handle on the top to agitate, but the water was heated up by gas, and that was a big innovation in those days. That was the latest model for washing about late 30's early 40's, and I often used to do the manipulation. It took about an hour to do a full wash, backwards and forwards with a handle, as the water was heated up, boiling if necessary, and then you drained it off at the tap at the bottom.

Did your mother have a particular wash day?

Well yes, usually Monday's it was in those days. Here it is any day of the week.

Do you think the washing machine gave your mother free time to do other things?

Not a lot really, 'cause as I say I did the manipulation, the manual work on it which was quite heavy going, and she wasn't very big, 5ft 4", quite slender, but no it only saved her heating up the water in pans to put into her old washing machine. So it did save her that work of heating in big pans, into the old washing machine, which had a big mangle on the top. Mind you so did the new one. That was a hand operated mangle, which she could operate. It was geared and the rubber thing... which was a big improvement in the old wooden ones, so it was very modern.

Can you explain to me how the cooker has changed over your life time, what you can remember of it?

Cooker's: Well I can't remember the one in the first house I lived in as that was a Company house. But the new house we had built had a gas cooker in. It was a Parkinson, which I think are still made, and it had 4 burners, quite modern of course for the 1930's. It had a grill underneath for toasting and one oven standing on four legs - and gas. So that was really modern for the day... Later on she had an electric cooker, but that was when they moved to Somerset; it was a Jackson cooker. She used to do a lot of cooking in those days, all the cooking was done in the house. You didn't buy things like you buy now from Tesco's or Marks and Spencer's. All the pies, the bread, the puddings, the meat was all done in the kitchen. We had quite a large kitchen, with a sink unit - well not a unit - but a sink, which had hot and cold taps; which was very good for the 30's to have hot and cold water. The hot water was heated by a gas boiler in the bathroom, Ascot boiler, which, as soon as you turned the tap on, the pilot light was lit and the gas flames came on; similar to today's central heating systems, only it was much larger. As soon as you turned the tap on you had hot water, which was quite innovative in the 30's once again.

Could I ask you what your job was?

Well, I'm a chartered electrical mechanical engineer. I've got qualifications behind my name, not that that matters now, but it did when I was working. I was an apprentice in 1944 to the local council electrical company, 'cause in the old days, the council ran the electricity. They ran the gas company, the transport, they ran the water, they were all owned by the local councils. I think it was still here in Poole when we moved here in 1952 from London, and I think the council there ran the electricity, the gas and the water. I don't think they ran the transport as that was the Hants and Dorset as it was called then, the green buses. You don't remember those?

No they are red now and owned by Wilts and Dorset.

Hants and Dorset they were then, and the Bournemouth yellow buses came straight through. So I worked with the local electric company as a apprentice. My starting pay was two and sixpence a week, the old two and sixpence, the most I ever got payed was 21 shillings a week and that was when I was 21! That is one pound one shilling of old money. This was because I was being trained, and I had a very good apprenticeship in all areas of electrical engineering. In the power station, that they had at Chesterfield in Derbyshire... we had... it was mainly DC in those days, direct current, mainly because of the trams and the trolley buses in the area, like the ones which used to be in Bournemouth and Poole. I can still remember the trolley buses here. Right, so I finished my apprenticeship 5 years and I got my certificate, signed by the Town Clerk, which I have still got, which says I had done all my training, in the power stations and everything. In the power stations we had these massive great reciprocating engines, the ones which go up and down like the ones you see on ships in the old days, producing DC current, and we had the small turbines, high speed, producing AC current. So it was mainly for the trams and trolley buses, which was the main usage in those days, as there were very few petrol or diesel engines. It was mainly electric trams and trolley buses, and we supplied them to the town.

How old were you when you finished all your training?

Twenty-one. And then I went on to take a job in London with the County of London Supply Company for 4 years. Having finished my training and got my qualifications, which is M.I.E.E., I'm a member of the electrical engineering group, mechanical engineering as well. When I was working in London, in the largest power station in Europe, we employed 2,000 men, next to the Ford Dagenham works an the banks on the Thames. It has all gone now all demolished, it was old then so it must have gone now. I worked in 1950 to 1954, and I was a junior engineer in the control room there, which was a massive place, suppling the whole of east London - several million people - with electricity, including all the factories, domestic, some of the railways, which were electric of course, not the underground, but the British rail services. I did electrical duties there: operating the turbines, issuing permits for men to work on equipment. I say 'men' because there were no women working in those days, not in the power stations. There were later, on mind you. And it was very instructive because I was still really learning. The variety of equipment was terrific. You know, different manufacturers, AC, DC, different types of boilers, different types of switch gear, some of it 400,000 volts, which is what it is now in the power line in Wareham towards Dorchester. That is the normal voltage for the grid system in the country. And from there I came down to Poole power station, which was owned by the same company, the County of London supply company; and that was brand new in 1954.

Is it still there now?

Oh no, it's demolished. Can't you ever remember the two chimneys? How are old are you both?

We are both 16.

Well I went there in 1954, I think it was built in 1952, but it was not completed in '54 when I came down. We got married here at Parkstone, and bought our first house at Parkstone, so that's how we know the area so well. We lived here for 12 years, and then we moved to Lychett Matravers to a new bungalow there. So, when I came here I was a control engineer and a charge engineer on shift all the time operating the power station, which was highly technical stuff, with the turbines, boilers, switch gear, all the maintenance, which was all done on shift work. And from there I went to South Wales to another power station, long since demolished, like Poole another new one, and I did electrical maintenance there; that's the motors, transformers. I was an engineer in charge of about 40 men at the time, as it was a big place employed about 700. And from there I went to a large power station in Yorkshire, called Eggborough, and it's one of the really big ones, and it is still working from 1967 when I went there. It is coal fired and it will probably work for another 20 years. Of course, that was state of the art then, new untried equipment. We had a lot of failures, a lot of break downs. Some of the alternators, where the electricity is produced had to be completely rewired costing millions of pounds, because of them being prototypes. They hadn't been used before; it was like the Concord. So I went on from there, after 10 years, to Scotland to work on the Hydro Electric power schemes in Argyle, on the west cost of Scotland, Fort William. So that is where I retired from in 1982, and we moved to England, to Lincolnshire. And from Lincolnshire to here, back in a full circle.

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