Chapter 10: Racal BCC - Part 2.
It was a wet and rainy day when I set off home as usual from the car park in Stonefield Way. I exited the car park in my Anglia and drove off towards the junction at the end of the road where there were a few cars already queuing to get out. I got to where I thought was the right time to brake and stabbed the pedal, nothing happened, I just kept sliding down the road and hit the back of one of the waiting cars with my right-hand wing.
My trusty, rusty Ford Anglia had survived all those trips up the A1 to Peterborough with only minor incidents concerning the electrics, so this was my first proper accident. Luckily the bloke I hit also worked at Racal, so we came to an amicable agreement. The car however needed some adjustment to be legal again. I had to do some hammering and pulling and needed a new headlight unit and indicator on the near side. Unfortunately, the wing had pushed back in the impact, and I could no longer open the passenger door. I am not sure how long I drove around like this, but I do remember people having to shuffle into the passenger seat via the driver's door for a while. This did prompt me to start looking for a new car though, and one day my dad found one through someone he knew, it was a Renault 17TL.
The fate of my first car is a bit murky. My dad sold it for a fiver to somebody he knew, and about six months later we got a letter from Camden council asking us to remove it from the road where it had obviously been dumped. We ignored the letter. The new Renault was a revelation though, it was quicker and more comfortable and even had a radio. Its best feature however was the full width electric sunroof which almost turned the car into a convertible. It made the trip up to Peterborough a pleasure, so I did not miss the old Anglia much.
My Ford Anglia
My Renault 17TL
It was while I was working in Ruislip that I bought my first house in 1985, which was a one-bedroom maisonette really. This was at 55 Elm Hatch, just near the station in Hatch End. I think I decided it was time to move out of the family home because I was 27 and still sharing a room with my brother Steve, and I was more than ready for my own space. Dad gave me £5000 to use as a deposit which was great. The property cost £34,000, so I also needed my first mortgage. It was a super little flat, but it was cold due to the single glazed metal frame windows. It also used hot air heating, so each room had a vent in the floor where hot air was pumped into the room. It wasn't very efficient. So, as well as redecorating, I fitted some secondary double glazing to try to retain some heat. I'm not sure it helped much.
My first house
One day it was announced that the Ruislip site was being closed and that all staff would be moved to the Wembley building. This was a surprise for all of us, I had even bought my house because of the easy access to Ruislip, now I had to fight my way to Wembley with all the other traffic going towards London. The company sweetened it a bit by offering some money in compensation, plus a pay rise.
An area of the Wembley building was cleared and prepared for us and when the time came everything was put into vans and in a couple of days we were up and running again. It was great to be working in a nice new environment albeit with the same scrappy drawing boards. As anticipated the traffic was much more troublesome than the commute to Ruislip but needs must.
Whilst at Wembley I did design a couple of products that have stuck in my mind. The first was a radio control panel for a helicopter. Our Jaguar radio was stored somewhere in the aircraft and linked via cables to the controller which was mounted in the cockpit. The second was also a remote controller called the BCC 43, where a soldier could use the radio up a tree or down a hole without having the bulk of the full radio on his back.
Luckily for us we had our own toilets, so negotiating the mess of the factory toilets was not an issue. Our office was like a bubble, in that it was all new and clean, as opposed to the grimy old appearance of the rest of the site. Sometimes I had to go to other areas but somehow it was a rare occurrence.
There were quite a few divisions in the Racal world, we were BCC, but there was also Racal Decca, Racal Telecoms, Racal Vadic and many more. Occasionally we would have an inter-division sports event, and I was persuaded to be in the BCC rugby team for one of these. Now that we were all on the same site, there was a larger pool of people to build a team from, so we ended up with quite a strong group of players. I cannot remember who we played, but we won, however I emerged a little bit worse for wear. I broke a metatarsal bone in my left hand when I punched someone in the face, and had to stop playing halfway through the second half of the final. It stopped me skydiving for a few weeks and I still have a lump on the back of my hand as evidence.
My design - BCC 43
My design - BCC 72 Helicopter controller
The Racal BCC rugby team.
I'm standing on the right with the jacket since I had broken my hand.