BEA property around London

[tubby linton]

BEA seemed to have property all around West London . I can think of their terminal in the Cromwell Road, the training centre at Heston and the head office in Ruislip. Why did they have their operations scattered around these sites and were there any others that I have not discovered? I don’t believe any are part of the current BA operation.

[GeeRam]

BEA had their own sports club as well IIRC, The Silver Wing Club(?) which was also near Ruislip, located just off the south-east corner of the A40 Polish War Memorial roundabout. I can remember going there with my uncle who was BEA during the sixties and into the early 70's prior to the merger with BOAC.

[condor17]

TL , I guess some were historical . Bealine House at Ruislip very convenient to where Ops started at Northolt .
West london air terminal , for pax to check in , then BEA bus to the airport ..before most had cars and well before tube / rail to LHR.

rgds condor .

[tubby linton]

The Ruislip site appears to have been in a former school and I have also discovered a uniform stores in Southall. Having the operation scattered around many different sites didn’t seem to be very efficient.

[tubby linton]

BEA social clubs in London
BEA Clubs 'back in the day':-

LHR Northside - Vanguard Club
LHR Eng Base - Pionair Club
West London Air Terminal - Comet Club
Ruislip - Trident Club

[Jackjones1]

Hatton Cross club or too late in the day for the BEA days?

[SpringHeeledJack]

I guess that as a government organisation, BEA was typical of the times before the bean-counters and bonus focused upper echelons existed. Not much dual usage and possibly duplication.

Was the Trident Club the sports/entertainment club close to a river and just off the A40 ? If so it was featured on some programme a while back and I think it had become a Polish or Indian club before becoming a bit run down.

The West London Air Terminal was an imposing building, funny I was in the supermarket that occupies the site only the other day. I used to find the buses towing the luggage wagon very interesting when younger, at least moreso than the LT Routemasters. I wonder if the luggage wagons were a standard model, or made specifically for BEA and BOAC ?

[TorC]

Waterloo Air Terminal (https://alondoninheritance.com/london-transport/the-waterloo-air-terminal/)

And until May 1953, Kensington Air Station (https://www.priory-antiques.co.uk/product/kensington-air-station-bea-passenger-terminal/) at 194-200 High Street Kensington

[DaveReidUK]

West London Air Terminal also hosted many departments in the office block above the terminal (now apartments).

As well as having my initial BEA interview there, I spent a lot of time there (post-merger) liaising with MIS on Engineering IT systems.

[TorC]

West London Air Terminal also hosted many departments in the office block above the terminal (now apartments).

As well as having my initial BEA interview there, I spent a lot of time there (post-merger) liaising with MIS on Engineering IT systems.
Agents Telephone Sales (ATS) along with Sovereign and Enterprise Holidays Telephone Sales on the 4th floor. Passenger Telephone Sales (PTS) and various ancillary depts such as Hotels/Car Hire on the 1st. Canteen and Comet Club on ground floor, or possibly in the basement, can't recall exactly.

[FlightlessParrot]

The West London Air Terminal was an imposing building, funny I was in the supermarket that occupies the site only the other day. I used to find the buses towing the luggage wagon very interesting when younger, at least moreso than the LT Routemasters. I wonder if the luggage wagons were a standard model, or made specifically for BEA and BOAC ?

:8 When I were a lad, spotting buses, we didn't have no anoraks, but I think those coaches with trailers were contemporary with the RT buses, before the Routemaster was introduced.
This forum is labelled "Nostalgia.":8

[WHBM]

.

The West London Air Terminal was an imposing building, funny I was in the supermarket that occupies the site only the other day. I used to find the buses towing the luggage wagon very interesting when younger, at least moreso than the LT Routemasters. I wonder if the luggage wagons were a standard model, or made specifically for BEA and BOAC ?
The luggage trailers that many remember were managed, like the buses that towed them, by London Transport, who designed them. There were two generations, they only lasted about 5 years each, the first ones were built by Marshalls of Cambridge, the same company who do a lot of aircraft overhaul work at the airport - they also have a long-established bus bodybuilding facility there. The second lot were built by Locomotors of Andover. The buses that towed them didn't last that long, they were only built in 1967 and the service ended in 1978 when the Underground opened.

[Thaihawk]

BEA had scattered offices in South Ruislip, Great Central House opposite South Ruislip underground station and another office block where the Ramada hotel is, and quite possibly another site used where the Sainsburys is now on Station Approach, all close to Northolt.

BA didn't depart from Ruislip until the latter half of the 1990s.

[tubby linton]

BKS Air Transport, which later became Northeast and ultimately part of BA had their head office at Hodford House in Hounslow. It became the head office for BA Regional Division.

[rog747]

BEA also had a 'Social' Housing scheme for staff - My pal had a flat in Hounslow that was part of that scheme - No idea if it carried on in later years...Does it survive?

They also owned Aerad ? International Aeradio, Ltd. for charts etc.

BEA Silver Wing holidays, and Enterprise Holidays (Which BEA Airtours was the in-house airline from 1970) I think the Sales offices were in Central London?

I cannot recall when Martin Rooks Holidays was owned by BEA. Their office was in Ebury St SW.1
Queues around the block even, with Mum & Dad on Sundays when the new summer brochure and holidays were released just after Xmas each year.

[radeng]

They also owned Aerad ? International Aeradio, Ltd. for charts etc.

International Aeradio did a lot more than charts - they ran training courses for foreign airports, fitted telephone exchanges in various places (I worked for a guy who, while with Aeradio, installed the first telephone exchange in Abu Dhabi in a mud hut!), maintained radio in aircraft and ATC etc, including providing a servicing facility for shipping ins some places in the Middle East He also did a radio training course for the Syrian Air Force, which subsequently got him in gaol in Damascus! Sometime after the course, there was a coup in Syria, and his BOAC flight to London was ordered to land when they were following the flight plan and were in Syrian air space. Everybody who had Syrian stamps in the passport were hauled off to prison: Don was lucky because the new government included people who had been on his course, so he was released pretty quickly. One of the guys in the prison was one Emil Savundra, later infamous the Fire Auto Marine insurance scandal.... for which he was a guest of Her Majesty for some time...

[Bergerie1]

I think you will find that International Aeradio Ltd (IAL) was started by BOAC, perhaps even Imperial Airways, I don't know the exact date.

It became a subsidiary of British Airways, having originally been owned by BOAC to provide ground services at various staging posts across the world and, in turn, Aerad was part of IAL. Prior to that time, IAL provided. or had provided, ATS at many locations world-wide - the West Indies, Libya, West Africa, East Africa, the Far East and notably the Middle East (Bahrein, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah etc) - and also at a number of small units in the UK, then just around that time (70s and 80s) adding contracts at Liverpool, Bournemouth and Southend Airports and the Brent Field HFIS in the North Sea.

BA later sold IAL down the river to BT who conducted an asset-stripping exercise and then sold the company on to Serco, whence it became Serco-IAL. As I understand it, Bailbrook College continued successfully until Serco overstretched themselves in their bid to get their sticky paws on NATS at the time of PPP and they were obliged to sell the family silver to make up their losses.

[TorC]

BEA also had a 'Social' Housing scheme for staff - My pal had a flat in Hounslow that was part of that scheme - No idea if it carried on in later years...Does it survive?

What was 'Airways Housing' now 'a2dominion' I believe. Also had a lot of estate in Stanwell, where many street names reflect the airport connection: Frobisher Crescent, Canopus Way, Viscount Rd, Elizabethan Way, Comet Rd, Britannia Way and others.

[rog747]

Many thanks chaps for the replies re Aerad.

Yes, Airways Housing, that was it.

[DaveReidUK]

Canteen and Comet Club on ground floor, or possibly in the basement, can't recall exactly.

IIRC, the Comet Club was in the basement. Used to visit from time to time when I was living in West Ken.

[blind pew]

Charts
in the 70s BEA charts were very different to those in BA long haul?
Pity my post re the unofficial meeting place for crew was deleted..it added a bit of reality and humour and no doubt many fine memories.

[Max Skylon]

Didn't Kershaw House, on the Great West Road, used to be the home of BEA Pension Scheme in the 60's and 70's ?

[DaveReidUK]

Didn't Kershaw House, on the Great West Road, used to be the home of BEA Pension Scheme in the 60's and 70's ?

Kershaw House was indeed the registered office and HQ of the Air Corporations Joint Pension Scheme.

As the name suggests, staff of BEA, BOAC, BEA Airtours, British Air Services and other related organisations were eligible.

[TorC]

IIRC, the Comet Club was in the basement. Used to visit from time to time when I was living in West Ken.

Yes, now that you've jogged my memory, it was in the basement. It wasn't unheard of for some who'd enjoyed a long evening in the CC to then retire to the 4th floor to sleep it off, especially if on an early the next day.

[pax britanica]

As ahs been pointed out seevral of these entities were not BEA alone . IAL was a company i knew well from their Gulf telecoms activities (I worked for Cable and Wireless a competitotr in that region . IALran Abu Dhabi telecoms and C&W Dubai telecoms so that had to be sorted out when the Emirates states was formed. My future wife was secretary to the boss at IAL for a time and she lived on the 'other' airways housing cheme estate off Cranford Lane opposite where the BOAC sports club and Fairey Aviation were . I think that was a partial JV with Hounslow council although like the Stanwell estate all the names were aviation related, Brabazon Rd Bleriot Rd etc . Very different to todays ghettos , mostly private developemnts now , Both estates had low density housing compared to today with most properties having decent sized gardens and all houses set well back from the roads and big green expanses seperating different areas . Especially among the mums in Stanwell there were a good few distinctly non West London accents mostly Dorset (Bournemouth/Hurn) and 'Brissol ' as BOAC had its wartime and immediate postwar activities located in those parts . BEA of course were in Northolt hence the HO in Ruislip.


I had several friends on the Stanwell estate ( l lived in the village , always emphasis on that word) and its maze like structure was perfect for early teens lads racing bikes around for hours at a time trying to catch or evade your mates. Also had a nice recreation ground tennis courts and possibly a bowling green plus a social club which was the scene of my earliest adventures with the opposite sex . Easy to criticise these things as 'typical nationalised industries but compare them to the shabby way people are treated nowadays. I dont know what happened to all the 'Airways Estate ' properties in Stanwell as I moved away in 1977 but no doubt most were sold off and like Cranford a lot of infill additional housing added it all being far too socialist for a lady who didnt believe in Society . (now there was a comment/idea whose consequences we suffer today)

[chevvron]

I had several friends on the Stanwell estate ( l lived in the village , always emphasis on that word) and its maze like structure was perfect for early teens lads racing bikes around for hours at a time trying to catch or evade your mates. Also had a nice recreation ground tennis courts and possibly a bowling green plus a social club which was the scene of my earliest adventures with the opposite sex . Easy to criticise these things as 'typical nationalised industries but compare them to the shabby way people are treated nowadays. I dont know what happened to all the 'Airways Estate ' properties in Stanwell as I moved away in 1977 but no doubt most were sold off and like Cranford a lot of infill additional housing added it all being far too socialist for a lady who didnt believe in Society . (now there was a comment/idea whose consequences we suffer today)
Ex Mrs C got a flat in a BA area in Stanwell and even after she left BA and became a nurse again close to Ashford hospital, they ley her stay in the flat while she was nursing c1981 - 1983

[radeng]

I find it interesting, and more than a bit sad, that the employment practices seem to have gone backwards in terms of worker benefits, especially when compared with the advances of the 1850s and later. Thinking in terms of worker's housing - the GWR Railway village in Swindon,(although the sewage system was appalling and a disgrace, especially considering the work of Chadwick and Bazelgette), the GWR Sickness Fund - on which Bevan based the NHS - the advances in workers housing, education and welfare at Alfred Krupp ('You get born in Krupp hospital, go to Krupp nursery, educated in a Krupp school, work for Krupp, go to a Krupp paid for church to get married, live in a Krupp house, die in a Krupp hospital and get buried in Krupp graveyard) was the popular but somewhat unofficial claim - all provided that you didn't rock the boat and be too much of trade unionist. Under Francis Webb at Crewe, things were less paternalist but promotion was very difficult if you weren't a Conservative voting C of E frequent church attender. In Alsace, under the great locomotive engineer, Alfred de Glehn at the Societe Alsacienne, where relatively (for the time) decent housing was provided. Some vestiges lasted until the latter half of the 20th century, such as the GEC Pension fund - for all Lord Weinstock was criticised, he set up the GEC Pension fund, )The Stanhope Trust) with a rule that no more than 5% of assets could be in GEC or subsidiaries, and a board of Trustees, who were therefor able to prevent a Robert Maxwell thievery attempt (if anyone should have his grave used as a public lavatory, he should!). In the 1950s, the NCB built housing estates for miners coming from exhausted Northumberland collieries to North Nottinghamshire - you don't see the NHS building affordable rented housing for their workers, even in areas where they badly need nurses and doctors and housing isn't affordable. (Although I suppose that these days, the Treasury would block any attempt!)

[tubby linton]

Does anybody have any photographs of the Heston training centre and the simulators?

[DaveReidUK]

I had several friends on the Stanwell estate ( l lived in the village , always emphasis on that word) and its maze like structure was perfect for early teens lads racing bikes around for hours at a time trying to catch or evade your mates. Also had a nice recreation ground tennis courts and possibly a bowling green plus a social club which was the scene of my earliest adventures with the opposite sex . Easy to criticise these things as 'typical nationalised industries but compare them to the shabby way people are treated nowadays. I dont know what happened to all the 'Airways Estate ' properties in Stanwell as I moved away in 1977 but no doubt most were sold off and like Cranford a lot of infill additional housing added it all being far too socialist for a lady who didnt believe in Society . (now there was a comment/idea whose consequences we suffer today)

At the start of my airline career, I stayed in digs just off North Hyde Lane. That was also an Airways Housing estate.

[Equivocal]

It became a subsidiary of British Airways, having originally been owned by BOAC to provide ground services at various staging posts across the world and, in turn, Aerad was part of IAL. Prior to that time, IAL provided. or had provided, ATS at many locations world-wide - the West Indies, Libya, West Africa, East Africa, the Far East and notably the Middle East (Bahrein, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah etc) - and also at a number of small units in the UK, then just around that time (70s and 80s) adding contracts at Liverpool, Bournemouth and Southend Airports and the Brent Field HFIS in the North Sea.Off at a slight tangent, those were interesting and fun days, I think. A couple of names spring to mind - Graeme A and Tony J, particularly - and a plonker in HR whose name escapes me, but for whom I would have joined in the fun in the sand.

[chevvron]

Does anybody have any photographs of the Heston training centre and the simulators?
I spent a short spell at Viking House on the NW corner of Heston in 1974 where there were sims and 'systems trainers'; there was also large social club to the south adjacent to the M4 .
I think many ATCO Cadets did our 2 week stint at Viking in the late '70s.

[KING6024]

Slightly changing the topic but when I moved here 38 years ago my neighbours were retired BEA staff who called their house Beaways.

[MAC 40612]

As ahs been pointed out seevral of these entities were not BEA alone . IAL was a company i knew well from their Gulf telecoms activities (I worked for Cable and Wireless a competitotr in that region . IALran Abu Dhabi telecoms and C&W Dubai telecoms so that had to be sorted out when the Emirates states was formed. My future wife was secretary to the boss at IAL for a time and she lived on the 'other' airways housing cheme estate off Cranford Lane opposite where the BOAC sports club and Fairey Aviation were . I think that was a partial JV with Hounslow council although like the Stanwell estate all the names were aviation related, Brabazon Rd Bleriot Rd etc . Very different to todays ghettos , mostly private developemnts now , Both estates had low density housing compared to today with most properties having decent sized gardens and all houses set well back from the roads and big green expanses seperating different areas . Especially among the mums in Stanwell there were a good few distinctly non West London accents mostly Dorset (Bournemouth/Hurn) and 'Brissol ' as BOAC had its wartime and immediate postwar activities located in those parts . BEA of course were in Northolt hence the HO in Ruislip.


I had several friends on the Stanwell estate ( l lived in the village , always emphasis on that word) and its maze like structure was perfect for early teens lads racing bikes around for hours at a time trying to catch or evade your mates. Also had a nice recreation ground tennis courts and possibly a bowling green plus a social club which was the scene of my earliest adventures with the opposite sex . Easy to criticise these things as 'typical nationalised industries but compare them to the shabby way people are treated nowadays. I dont know what happened to all the 'Airways Estate ' properties in Stanwell as I moved away in 1977 but no doubt most were sold off and like Cranford a lot of infill additional housing added it all being far too socialist for a lady who didnt believe in Society . (now there was a comment/idea whose consequences we suffer today)

As previously stated the properties were passed to "Airways Housing Society" which continued until the late 1990s still offering properties to rent and buy [via shared ownership, so letting staff on lower incomes get on the property ladder] when it was sold off by BA to a separate housing society that is still in existence. The problem that most housing societies have nowadays, is that they are obliged by law to offer even properties that were previously only rented out, to be purchased by the tenant if they express a desire to buy the property and can raise the funds. This has meant many housing societies have had to sell off a lot of their properties.

The airline also owned a Hostel in Cranford that used to house hundreds of both Engineering and General airline apprentices which was in existence until the late 1980s early 1990s when they started winding down their apprenticeship schemes and no longer needed the facility. It had also for a time, been used to house a large number of Metropolitan Police cadets while they trained, whilst also still being used by BA. The Hostel site was sold off in the 1990s [when BA was selling everything off] and for a while was used to house asylum seekers and homeless people [whole families to a room that used to house one apprentice!] until that was shut down. The site is now a 4* boutique hotel [The Heston Hyde Hotel]

[MAC 40612]

I guess that as a government organisation, BEA was typical of the times before the bean-counters and bonus focused upper echelons existed. Not much dual usage and possibly duplication.

Was the Trident Club the sports/entertainment club close to a river and just off the A40 ? If so it was featured on some programme a while back and I think it had become a Polish or Indian club before becoming a bit run down.

The Trident Club was indeed the one close to the A40, It was sold off to long ago and became the C&L Country Club [and is still there]

[SpringHeeledJack]

Thanks for scratching that itch MAC 40612 (Starlifter reg ?).

The way BEA, and others looked after their staff back in the day was, by today's standards, nothing short of incredible. That they recognised the challenges faced by apprentices on low wages as they learnt, staff that were coming and going whilst on flight duty, ground staff who needed to live close to the airport and social facilities for friendship and fitness whilst engendering better working dynamics.

[DaveReidUK]

The airline also owned a Hostel in Cranford that used to house hundreds of both Engineering and General airline apprentices which was in existence until the late 1980s early 1990s when they started winding down their apprenticeship schemes and no longer needed the facility. It had also for a time, been used to house a large number of Metropolitan Police cadets while they trained, whilst also still being used by BA. The Hostel site was sold off in the 1990s [when BA was selling everything off] and for a while was used to house asylum seekers and homeless people [whole families to a room that used to house one apprentice!] until that was shut down. The site is now a 4* boutique hotel [The Heston Hyde Hotel]

The infamous Thorncliffe House.

[G-ARZG]

The infamous Thorncliffe House.

Ah Dave, at least it did 'what it says on the tin'...

[blind pew]

Jack they didn't look after cabin crew nor new flight deck. In the 70s cabin crew got a 100% pay increase prior to a threatened strike and a tabloid waiting to publish an article about a married steward with a child receiving supplementary benefits because they were living below the poverty line. It was similar for concessions especially for crew. I recieved zero help when I joined.

[pax britanica]

Bp

Having read your interesting book (s) i know you have an issue with BEA and can understand why as well having grown up in a town village where almost everyone was BOAC or BEA and it was clear to me even in my teens that some organisations held undue sway over both corporations.
Nuff said on that

I dont recall any 'BA' cabin crew that lived in the village or on the Airways housing development although people from all kinds of areas of the airline did live there, a couple of Pan Am cc did live in the village as I recall .
As for aircrew i do recall my school friend who went through Hamble straight from school and then to BOAC getting a pretty decent mortgage compared to what I could afford and he had a decent car so he can't have been doing that badly More senior a/c seemd to live in places like Ascot, Sunningdale and Camberley, my friend moved to Windlesham after not all that long as an FO . Captain country as my father used to refer to them.

Camberley still seemed pretty popular with flight crew while I lived there with a few house names on places like Crawley Ridge (very leafy very pricey) having obvious aviation connections along with some personalised licence plates 4 DME and LHR 27L being two I recall seeing over the years I lived there

[blind pew]

Pax Brit..most of it changed for the better after lord king took over for BEA copilots although hamsters and other cadets were sold out which affected command time as most of my mates who stayed at Heathrow took 20 years to a command.
I had some fabulous times in BEA but the politics as you have written “Nuff said on that”...I had a very thick file when I went to BOAC, John D’arcy gave me a chance and when I left said that there would always be a job for me there. No doubt he knew from the guild those with whom I had crossed swords and there was a movement to stop one of those BEA managers climbing up the new management ladder..unsuccessfully. A couple of trainers mentioned that when DIbley’s brown bomber air Mauritius crews came back he tried to put the kibosh on it as they may have learnt bad habits!..Bad habits..biggest cowboy that I flew with.

[avionic type]

My father worked for Imperial Airways / BOAC from 1929 to 1963 through the war etc ,and after the war both BEA and BOAC found they were scattered at different locations and housing was at a premium with as in our case stationed at Bovingdon with no housing to be had at all ,they took over an abandoned ex USAAF billet huts made them habitable and after Bovingdon closed and every thing moved to LHR in 1946 by this time the Housing Association had foreseen this and starting building estates around LHR for both Corporations and we ended up in Ruislip around 1949 I as a electrical improver was put into “digs”( no apprenticeship in those days) during the changeover, all the housing was rented and you were asked to move if you “empty nested”,my parents moved to Stanwell and stayed there until they died at a great age.

[HZ123]

Interesting topic in the late 80's I was a Security Surveyor based in the new Vanguard House. Our Director was David Hyde who wore a number of hats including Head of Safety and Security, also he had a hand in the property portfolio. Ceasing the moment at the monthly meeting I volunteered to review off airport property security. I was able to get 52 pages of A4 paper with World wide property of that nearlt 30 pages of it were in the UK. At that time we had a hotel/conference centre in Chesham but of real interest was a farm and golf course in Essex. When I said to him one day I was off to inspect our Essex property he said there is no such thing as BA owning that. Anyway I showed him my paperwork and he checked and confirmed we indeed were the owners. I was told it wouod be disposed of but I never recall hearing about it again or finding any reference to its sale. At this time we also had the 1-11 club at BHX and the Clansman at GLA. A very nicely placed sales/reservations office in St Helier to name a few. Wish I had kept the list>

[SpringHeeledJack]

Crazy to think that there were properties unknown to the company, off the radar so to say! I'm reminded of this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiEMPy4P9nA

Perhaps the bean counters knew of the properties and the salaries and outgoings and maybe even profits ? :8

[GBOAA]

Wasn't there a BEA building of some sort on what is now farmland opposite the Hilton Garden Inn on the A30?

[CISTRS]

BEA's Reservation Department moved to Dorland Hall, Lower Regent Street, in 1948.

[Midland 331]

Some discussion of The Heston Hilton here:-

https://www.pprune.org/aviation-history-nostalgia/345107-heston-hilton-ba-training-centre-what-went-there.html

[1965 BEA]

Was there an Argosy Club? Perhaps at Hatton Cross?

[Gordomac]

Leeds Based Viscount FO with Northeast posted to LHR and within weeks transferred to Trident 1E. Course was at Heston. I was in the middle of house search .Ground-School Instructor told me that BEA had rooms, at Heston, where one could stay short or long term. I booked.in, had a comfortable room for next to nothing. Ate in the Canteen. Still failed the ARB though !

[PG Aviation]

Why exactly did BA own all this property? 52 pages with approx how many on each page...?!

[WHBM]

Company I worked for, non-aviation, took on in the 1980s a lease from BA at Heathrow House, on the A4 next to where the DoubleTree is now. Probably built 1970s - still there. Had all five floors, BA had completely moved out.

Phoned a colleague up one day, all normal and we were having a technical discussion. Suddenly there breaks in a stroppy woman "Hello there, this is British Airways Switchboard SUPERVISOR here at (some location). We regularly have your company coming in on OUR lines like this. Give me the phone number you are on, I will have it traced. Yes ... and yes ... Good day".

Presumably some phone line connection not completely severed when they moved out.

[Gordomac]

Ooooooh I feel a conspiracy theory coming on.

[PG Aviation]

Company I worked for, non-aviation, took on in the 1980s a lease from BA at Heathrow House, on the A4 next to where the DoubleTree is now. Probably built 1970s - still there. Had all five floors, BA had completely moved out.

WHBM, wow...

I have heard BA had lots of property here and there on Bath Road/A4.
Do you know anything else about other property?

I am ever so intrigued at the scale of BA back in the day!