"In The Know"
"In The Know" was a monthly newsletter that came about at Bristows Aberdeen base during 1988 to 1990. It was edited by an engineer, Paul Richardson on a (state of the art) Amstrad PC 1512 and printed on a dot matrix (remember them?) printer.
Paul had been in Bristows since 1977, and knew how it ticked. The first two ITK's were written at Redhill by Eoin Harcus in the early 1980's and were a light hearted (and a little 'blue') look at the goings-on in the hangar. Paul borrowed the title as it fitted in so well with the Bristow Aberdeen regime at the time.
At Aberdeen there were a number of engineers 'griping' over various things, and the highlight for Paul was when the catering firm refused to change the 'pineapples with everything' policy in the sandwich machine. This was the impetus for ITK issue 3 (the first Aberdeen ITK). It was clear that the Bristow operation at Aberdeen had a wealth of other subjects, anecdotes and inter-department bickering that could be tastefully written into a monthly newsletter. The single-sheet ITK was born again!
Careful articles were needed to include hot subjects like lack of grease guns, the introduction of 12 hour shift patterns, canteen food, the discrepancies between flying staff conditions and engineers. It was clear from the start that management were not happy about their portrayal in ITK, as it highlighted problems all too clearly, without mentioning their names. After just a few issues, stories were being relayed, anecdotes and little bits of 'info' were all fed to be included in ITK, even poems about the hangar doors being left wide open in the winter. Nobody was safe, if 'they' wouldn't listen, then ITK would tell everybody else.
ITK seemed to be filling a hole in the market. Non-engineers were asking for copies, flying staff, Redhill management, overseas staff, in fact the popularity was spreading fast. Too fast for some people. No matter that the subjects covered in ITK were 'trivia' and not concerning BHL as a whole, it seemed to raise a smile on otherwise uninformed staff. It was clear that ITK would have to stop (according to the bosses).
A few heated discussions took place between Paul and the management. Once he was blamed for the repair costs being too high on the aircraft jacks (mentioned in ITK). Nothing changed. But the final straw came when ITK pointed out one too many things and a meeting was called. It was decided that ITK had to go, after all that time the management had finally won. Paul was sure that somebody would pick up the challenge, but nobody came forward. Some operations have printed small numbers of similar newsletters, but kept the distribution on a small (safe) scale.
Keep your ear to the ground, you never know when ITK will rise again!
PR
And NO, I am not putting all the ones I have in my procession on-line!! de.