Data Capture Reference Material

It was during the long hazy summer of 1976 that I started to work at the United Friendly Insurance Co Ltd at Southwark Bridge, South East London. Still in my teens I initially started in the Secretariat Department where all the “finance stuff” was done.

After a few months I was introduced to a bloke called Ted Brown who was the departmental manager for Data Control on the Ground Floor. Data Control was divided up into rooms, the largest of which contained a fleet of data input terminals operated by all females. These girls just sat there keying in data from forms at a phenomenal rate. There was a small area which has a couple of ladies who seemed to prepare work for the punch staff and another smaller room which housed the Redifussion SeeCheck system. So it seemed that Ted was the only male!

Now Ted was a man who’s bark was greater than his bite (or should that be byte!) and did not tolerate fools lightly. But that said Ted was very knowledgeable and most helpful and always went that extra length to help you. Ted was characterised by a “bump” on his forehead which some said it was a knowledge bump. His passion in life, so I learnt was Tropical Fish and rumour had it, his house was tanked up with….fish tanks much to the annoyance of his wife but to the delight of his electricity supplier. Rather unfortunately, Ted’s office also contained a fish tank but one could not see what’s inside due to the excessive algae. Ted always had a reason for it being like that!

We in Secretariat had installed 2 Olivetti DE523 Data Encoding machines arranged by Ted. We keyed data into these which wrote to Cassette Tape which were in turn passed to Data Control. There was a lady who worked for Ted called Hilda. From memory, I believe that Hilda was Ted’s sister-in-law. Now Hilda was okay when things were running okay, but when the dreaded Gremlin caused things to go pear-shape, Hilda used to panic, I think because Ted was not renowned for his discretion and would broadcast what when wrong and who had done it.

Some considerable time later, Ted announced that the Olivetti’s were to be replaced by two Redifon (Mk3?) terminals which meant that we would key data straight into the Redifon system to be later batch processed. I believe that the SeeCheck system was replaced sometime earlier by 2 R800 series systems. Now training was organised by Ted and another member of Secretariat, Eddy found the change difficult and needed extra help but was offended by Ted’s step by step guide which read - Step one “With the screen facing you, power on the terminal”. Eddy said I know I’m a bit slow, but I’m not bloody thick – I know which is the front! Ted’s assistant manager, Beverly Oxford was most apologetic.

We also ended up with a Redifon daisy wheel printer which was assigned a Printer Number by the Redifon system. One day, I had just finished keying data and I wanted to print the error report. Unfortunately, I mis-keyed the Printer Number and entered I think a “0”. Well this caused the system to loop as it was looking for a Printer called 0. I could not get out of the screen I was on and so a phone call was made to Ted who within minutes stormed into the room like a bull in a china shop and proceeded to, in his usual mannerisms tell me to be more careful. I know I went red with embarrassment because of Ted’s wrath. It felt worse than being at school!

Ted never held a grudge – thankfully. My next appointment with his wrath was when I accidentally spilt some tea into the keyboard. Okay, I was young and naïve and did not say anything. Another chap in the office reported the faulty keyboard to Ted. The following day an engineer turned up and dismantled the keyboard. He held the keyboard up and this syrup like substance dripped out – a cocktail of tea and paper dust! The engineer never said a word and repaired the keyboard and left. Got away with that one, so I thought. Later that day whilst leaving to go home I walked passed Ted in Reception. “Good night Ted” I said. Ted glared and grunted with a displeasing look.

Time went by and there was no more wrath from Ted as I demonstrated an aptitude for learning how to operate these units to a greater level and moreover perhaps being honest when realising that you’ve done something wrong. I continued to grow a greater respect for Ted which proved to be a worthwhile thing when one day something went wrong and we would have had to rekey hundreds of records. Found Ted had just returned from a director’s lunch. I explained to Ted our predicament and he said “Bloody hell Glenn, you’re asking me to write some code……I’ve just knocked back a jolly good few whiskeys with your boss”, He continued “I’ve never coded when pissed but I’ll try when I can work out which is the actual terminal and not the double”! We both laughed and I left him to it. Against all odds he done it and all he asked for was a mention through the channels to which we done with pleasure.

During Redifon’s history at UF, the systems were relocated to the 4th floor and re-badged to ROCC.

I leapt at the opportunity to attend an in-house System Supervisors course which included power up / down, batch processing, tape archiving and printer maintenance, and liaising with Redifon for faults. I found this rewarding and was left in charge several times. This experience of being up close and personal with the hardware stood me in good stead when I later joined UF’s mainframe operations department kitted out with ICL hardware.

I also met and got to know a Redifon engineer called Rod (or Rob). He had some albino type features and was very helpful and also used to reel off jokes. From memory there was another engineer called Phil Jones I think worked out of ROCC’s office in Crawley.

Although UF does not really exist anymore as a result of mergers, take overs etc. both ROCC and ICL hardware memories will stay with me for a long time along with the fond memories of working for the UF. Now working as an ICT Manager within the educational sector, I still enjoy working and at times find it easier working at Command Line level than cope with the “frillyness” of Microsoft wizards.

Glenn Johnson
June 2012