It was about 6 months into my work in the mechanical gang when I was asked to cover a shift as Technician. They must have been pretty short of staff at the time and I was probably last in the line to be asked. Although it was a Technicians roll it was an assistant to a Senior Technician post on a late shift at Redhill from 14.00hrs to 22.00hrs. It was a maintenance and fault finding shift covering the Redhill area. Looking back on this shift I can say that it was the start of my career in Signalling Engineering. It was an introduction to technology very different to mechanical. My Senior Technician was a young guy who had progressed through Trainee Technician and Technician to his present roll. I got to know him over the years.
He lived in Eastbourne and once I went out to sea on his fishing boat. He even ate my sandwiches as I held my head over the side of the boat being violently ill. I’m not a good sea traveller.
A great lad and very clever, especially with his hands making models. Anyway back to the shift. By the way they were 2 man shifts in those days. The Mtce Depot was a step up from our van. It was a brick building with a workshop and very comfortable mess room with table, cushioned benches, a gas cooker and large electric heater. Ooops, forgot the television. After booking on and a quick cuppa we went over to Redhill “B” Box which was his maintenance patch. After a chat with the Signaller we went into the adjacent Relay Room and carried out some cleaning of relays.
He used a box with leads coming out of it and put them onto terminals of the relays and jotted some readings down on a card. I think it was a meter he was using. We strolled back over to the mess room at about 16.30hrs. It was all quiet. Everybody had gone home. We were on our own. There was a telephone in the room, but failures were reported to us by an alarm. The Signaller at Redhill “B” would be alerted of a failure and then press a button that would sound a buzzer in our workshop. We would then telephone the signaller and receive information about the failure. It was all quiet though and we had a peaceful cup of tea and our sandwiches. After tea my Senior Tech started work-on his models.
At about 19.30 he suggested we popped over the road for a beer. The drugs and alcohol rules were a long way off and it was an acceptable, if not compulsory, pastime. I think the name of the Public House across the road was “The Home Cottage” and it was obvious from our entry that my Senior Tech was known as a local. We were half way through our pint when he said, “Drink up, we’ve got a failure”. He was sitting in a chair that I believe may have been his regular chair from which looking out of the window he could see the workshop.
There was a tree outside of the workshop that could be seen sitting in his chair and there, up in the tree, was a lamp lit. He had designed and fitted some circuitry such that when the Signaller pressed the fault alarm the lamp would light up in the tree. Clever lad as I said. Back we went to the mess room where he extinguished the lamp and telephoned the Signaller.
You may have noticed I have not mentioned names in my blogs. You’ll be pleased to hear that Stuart…I mean Jim, no Tony, Fred…doesn’t matter.
That shift set me up for the future. This was my kind of life. My goals were set. I wanted to become a Technician. First I had to learn about electricity and magnetism. The following day it was down to WH Smith & Sons and my first book on the subject was purchased.
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