SouthernATCC1967/68

[Mr_Grubby]

http://www.btinternet.com/~simon.gurry/SouthernATCCs.JPG
I know there are a few 'old boys' that frequent these boards.
Anybody put any names to this lot from the late '60's ?

Southern Air Traffic Control Center, north side of Heathrow on the old edge lit boards with china graph pens.


Clint.

[Talkdownman]

Probably Dave Purnell with the beard.
I have a rather nice set of SATCC pictures taken August '59. Plus Shack sent me one from a bit later. If you want 'em, Clint, PM me an email.

[Talkdownman]

........and I reckon that might be Chris Cosgrave on the right.......

[Talkdownman]

..........which would make it 'C' watch............

[chevvron]

Funny the differences; the edge lit boards at Heathrow were viewed via a CCTV camera behind them, but at JATCRUs they were just edge lit boards placed next to the controller. You had to write callsign one side of level at Heathrow, and the other side at the JATCRU (at least you did at Lindholme).
Mind you at Heathrow you didn't have the tracker and height finder as well!

[spekesoftly]

Crisp white shirts and highly polished shoes - splendid! And those headsets look very familiar - the one I use now, some 40 years later, looks no different.:p

[HEATHROW DIRECTOR]

Oh God... Not another nostalgia trip!!!

I never served at the Southern Centre, but had plenty of dealings with the staff there in the early 60s during my first job as a lowly clerk in tels HQ dealing with telephone keyboards.

I visited there in about 1962ish and stood behind a radar controller who was dealing with what I now understand as TMA(SE). He was Canadian... Don Sullivan?? I have a good recall of voices and many years later taking releases from TMA in London Approach I was amazed to hear his voice. At a subsequent Heathrow Nostalgia evening one of the tapes played included the same voice and lots of old hands shouted: "That's Don Sullivan" (Thats if I got the name right - can someone confirm please?)

That bearded guy in the pic looks like Ray Plant but I don't think he served there. He started at Heathrow as an ATCO Cadet in 1970. Chris Cosgrave started at Heathrow in 1973 as an ATCO Cadet so could it have been him in early 60s?? Chris now flies big jets for Gamma.. and Ray Plant was SATCO Guernsey last time I heard.

[chevvron]

For the uninitiated, these boards were maintained by assistants who monitored the D man, the radar man and the aircraft and wrote the info on the perspex, allowing the radar man to work in the dark without making notes on odd bits of paper! At the Heathrow unit, the D men had moved to West Drayton by the time I worked there whilst the radar men were there until Mediator Stage 1 in Feb '71; we were the last watch to use the boards. At Lindholme, just east of Doncaster, the D men were at Barton Hall near Preston, and you were also linked to the 'companion' radar man at Eastern Radar, Watton in Suffolk. Funnily enough, the intervening radar unit at North Luffenham didn't have a civil element; I suppose with overlapping coverage from JATCRU's at Boulmer, Lindholme, and Watton it wasn't necessary.

[Mr_Grubby]

Heathrow Director.
You are quite correct about Don Sullivan. I worked with him at ScATCC in 1978.
Not so sure he was Canadian though. The word on the watch was that in his Air Force days he did a touch and go at Saskatchewan and just picked up the accent! Took off as a Brit and landed a Canuck !!

I can tell everybody that Chris Cosgrave is not in the picture.

Clint.

[Talkdownman]

I think Don Quentin Sullivan had a bit of Irish too so maybe we can forgive the 30 West accent.

_Grubby, can you recognise any of those three, then? I'm pretty sure that is Purple Nellie. Cossie was on the North Side radar boards as an ATCA with Redford. Are you sure that's not him.......when he was slim?

[Mr_Grubby]

OK then.

In the foreground with the nice shiny Chelsea boots is Ray Plant.
Middle of the picture on the boards is Mike Gale ‘D’ Watch
In the background is Alan May who went to ‘A’ Watch.

Mike (Micky) Gale sent me the picture. He is alive and well and living in Newark, Notts.
Now a successful Antiques dealer.

Clint.

[Talkdownman]

Well I'm........it's MG himself......
I didn't know RP. Well spotted HD.

[HEATHROW DIRECTOR]

Mr Grubby wrote: "You are quite correct about Don Sullivan. I worked with him at ScATCC in 1978. Not so sure he was Canadian though. The word on the watch was that in his Air Force days he did a touch and go at Saskatchewan and just picked up the accent! Took off as a Brit and landed a Canuck !!"
You're not thinking of GO by any chance?????
I thought Don Sullivan was Irish until a Heathrow evening when someone told me he was Canadian.. Wonder what happened to him?

Ray Plant was on C Watch when I started at Heathrow; that's how i recognised him.

[chevvron]

Hmm. Mick Gale was on D watch but I didn't recognise him; should have recognised Alan May as he was senior ATCA at the radar unit when I went there (along with Keith Davies)