British Relay/ Visionhire

[Grahame]

I started at the BRW The Moor in 1967 as a salesman working with Colin Simmonds a great bloke he died about 6 years ago,from there as a manager Rotherham Barnsley Angel St 8 years when that closed in 91 went as a relieve manager for a while then Hillsbro Chesterfield finally Alfreton where I got the redundancy i wanted 1997 aged 58 not worked since my choice its a great life.I knew lots of people so anyone out there who knew me HI.

Roy Hutchinson.

 

Hello Roy, how you doing?

 

Last time we spoke you were watching your bungalow being built, I think it was a bungalow, and you had an emergency operation. If you think on you will know me, possibly from when I was working at Foxhill, then I moved to Hellaby and then to Kimberworth.

 

I stuck it out till 2001 when we merged with Redifusion and things got really dire. I jumped at the chance of redundancy and now I have a far nicer job with no stress. I would like to work till I'm 65 if possible but I have to admit that retirement is looking increasingly attractive.

 

Cheers for now Roy, Graham.

[Grahame]

john norburn

 

If I have the right person, I'm useless at matching names to faces, then I knew John ever so well. Did he have white hair and did he live somewhere near Blare Athol Road or one of those roads nearby, or was that a relative? I seem to remember he was into ballroom dancing? I met him when we got taken over by Granada and your father was working at Hellaby. How is he?

[chumpy]

I worked for British Relay during the sixties from the installation depot opposite the old rag'ntag. Wired up Norfolk Park and a few others.

Forgotten the full names but I worked with an old irish bloke called Jim and a bloke around 22 called Dave, the gaffer was called Alan.

We did all the new estates and all the strip outs when the St Philips area was being razed. Breakfast every morning varied between Butlers, a cafe at the bottom of Wolsey Rd ( Step Aside?)and another one on Langsett Rd , dripping cake or a tomato dip for me.

regards Mick

[Arfer Mo]

Does anyone remember BRW - British Relay, they set up the first cable tv in Sheffield in the late sixties. It ran it's own programmes including a quiz and OB from such as the whitsun parade in High Hazels park. British Relay were taken over in late 1979 by Visionhire, which was when I joined them, and BRW was no more.

Hi I seem to recall the cable being fastened to our wall on Sedan st about 1960, just before we moved, they said we would receive a shilling a year compensation if we did not want to partake, am I right or am I mistaken, or possibly it was preliminary work. Cheers Arthur.

[Grahame]

Hi I seem to recall the cable being fastened to our wall on Sedan st about 1960, just before we moved, they said we would receive a shilling a year compensation if we did not want to partake, am I right or am I mistaken, or possibly it was preliminary work. Cheers Arthur.

 

Yes you are right. It was a shilling a year and it was part of the agreement between you and BRW, it was known as "wayleave."

[Arfer Mo]

Yes you are right. It was a shilling a year and it was part of the agreement between you and BRW, it was known as "wayleave."

Hi Thanks for the conformation Arthur.

[orinoco2]

Hi Jane do you remember Percy Fletcher, I think he was in charge of the collectors, at any rate he was on bad debt and he lived on the Manor.

 

The only time I went upstairs was to see two ladies in a small room and they kept a check on our areas and the number of accounts we were responsible for servicing. We got paid according to the number of customers we had. I repaired off-air sets rather than pipeline sets.

 

I think the service manager was Mr Downing at that time, and another director was Arthur Sandford, then there was another director down the passage next to Mr. Snelsons office who was responsible for the shops, I can't remember his name.

 

We moved into Derbyshire Lane from the premises at Heeley at the top of Queens Road, and Aurther Sandford had me rewiring the canteen. I was scared stiff of heights and we were standing on a plank between two ladders fitting the fluorescent lights and he kept bouncing up and down on the plank, I was scared stiff but after about five minutes I realised nothing was going to happen and I lost my fear. He did me a good turn really.

 

I remember when decimalisation came out we all went to the moor shop on different days for a course in the new money and the manager of the shop took the course and we all went to Zing Va for our dinner. Very nice. I hope you are doing alright, were you at Derbyshire Lane long? I think it was all manual accounting then wasn't it and the customers had their own paying in book? I hope some of this means something to you, but those are my memories, what are yours?

 

The scheme where you was paid relative to the customers was called The Morris Scheme after the chap who introduced it. It worked on around 1500 customers per engineer and extra pay could be earned by completing "assisted jobs" which were jobs you did on another engineers patch when he was too busy.

[Grahame]

The scheme where you was paid relative to the customers was called The Morris Scheme after the chap who introduced it. It worked on around 1500 customers per engineer and extra pay could be earned by completing "assisted jobs" which were jobs you did on another engineers patch when he was too busy.

 

That's right, the only trouble was that I never got paid when I covered for other people.

 

Can I ask who you were in real life orinoco, perhaps a PM might be best if you want to remain anonymous.

 

.

[orinoco2]

I did not work at Sheffield - I was at Peterborough 0310 depot.

 

I started there in 1970 and was continuous service via takeovers right up until 1991.

1970 - 1978 British Relay

1978 - 1984 Visionhire

1984 - 1988 Granada

1988 - 1990 Serviscope ( think those years were correct)

1990 - 1991 Computec

 

I was a EETPU steward from about 1975 right up to 1991 and a senior steward from about 1986. It was a sad day when we were called to Rotherham depot on 14th Feb 1991 to be told it was all over.

 

Regards

Roy

[Grahame]

I did not work at Sheffield - I was at Peterborough 0310 depot.

 

I started there in 1970 and was continuous service via takeovers right up until 1991.

1970 - 1978 British Relay

1978 - 1984 Visionhire

1984 - 1988 Granada

1988 - 1990 Serviscope ( think those years were correct)

1990 - 1991 Computec

 

I was a EETPU steward from about 1975 right up to 1991 and a senior steward from about 1986. It was a sad day when we were called to Rotherham depot on 14th Feb 1991 to be told it was all over.

 

Regards

Roy

 

That was the same for me, except I started at a Sheffield firm called Snelsons in 1960, they were rivals to Wigfalls, Then British Relay took Snelsons over, then it was Visionhire and then it was Servicescope. Then Granada (I never heard of Computec) and I stayed with Granada till 2001 (at Rotherham) until we merged with Radio Rentals and we all moved to Leeds. We were there a few months and then we all got made redundant.

 

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