The tower is coming down.....never made it up to the top, but visited the canteen on the ground floor many a time !!!

On a different topic, I wonder if any contributors here ever flew out of White Waltham in an old Apache for "air experience" in the early '70's ???:)

After my time...

A310bcal... ground floor canteen, otherwise known as the Greasy Spoon. Remember the delightful Ivy?

A310bcal:
My ATCO Cadet Course (No 23) did our route flying in it(1974; G-ASMN?); Waltham - Birmingham and return on airways, then Waltham - Stansted OCAS and Stansted - Ostend return on airways. The ATCO Cadet did the navigation and RTF whilst the instructor, Frank Brejka, did most of the flying. I say most because he let me pole it from Stansted back to Waltham via overhead my parents house in Chesham!

31 May 1974 ? Mr Cl**ke? happy days eh?:)

A310bcal...

My memory must be playing tricks but I seem to remember flying in an Aztec down to Bournemouth to pick up duty frees and then on to Bordeaux for lunch.
We were supposed to stop at Jersey on the way back but as we were running late we just went around.
I was sitting down the back as La Rochelle passed below thinking that I was unlikely to do this again and how nice La Rochelle looked.
I guess that was 1973 ; our training was holistic back then.

Qwerty2:

Not guilty that time , altho' was around White Waltham at that time.....there was an Aztec based there, G-AZZA so you might well have flown in that, a darn sight better than that battered old Apache I can tell you.
But the favoured run with you young guys from ATC in '74 was down to Bournemouth, over to Jersey, then to Dinard , ( for duty free purposes), thence to Cardiff via Berry Head ( remember being asked where we were going by ATC as we TRIED to pick up and track the BHD NDB on a very "iffy" receiver).
Clear customs and then back down Green 1 to WOD to leave for White Waltham. Not sure who enjoyed it most , me or the pax as it was a great day out for us all!

As the others, great fun, with a twist. Went White Waltham-Bournemouth-Jersey-Manchester - White Waltham. Only we didn't, got to Jersey and we went to see a colleague in the Twr and the pilot went for a comfort break. Met back at the aircraft and as we were taxying he said "there's a howling Northerly, it will take forever to get to Manch, let's got to Southend instead"
So muggins ends up re-planning as we taxy out.
Get to Southend where the pilot has some mates only they stood round laughing.
Customs decided that we were iffy having not gone to Manch and late change to Southend maybe we were smuggling and took lots of the aircraft apart!

Some time later we got back to White Waltham.

windowjob.

:D

WINDOOOOOOOOW!

Something often heard in Tels requiring everyone to drop everything and rush across and have a good stare

On the 6th floor in the old radar room we had covered windows. If there was ever anything of 'interest' outside a similar call would go out 'this is a window job' whereupon the controllers (usually all but the one left 'holding the baby'...) would rush over to the window, pull back the blind, let in loads of light and crowd around the window making suitable derogatory comments and exclamations....great fun...

And one day we ALL managed to get to the window which was underneath the visitors gallery.

Upon returning to the positions we glanced up to see horrified faces - visitors who'd just looked down at the radar room at "the worlds busiest" to see it totally empty! :eek:

I guess no more "window jobs" once smf came in.

Often wondered where your "callsign" came from.:D

Couldn't have been any worse than the one in the old orth Side LATCC . I reckon when they knocked it down they'd have had to take dynamite to the grease build-up behind the cooker.
Then there was Fag-ash Lil; never seen without a fag with at least an inch of ash on it until she coughed and it fell on your food. Happy days.:ugh:

Recall the venetian blinds in the gallery operated from a panel near the sup's desk? There were switches and push buttons and nobody knew exactly what they did, except that by pushing a button or switching a switch would make one of the blinds open. Favourite trick was to push a button as one was going on a break resulting in the room being flooded in daylight and strings of expletives coming from the controllers!

HD
I had an email from a controller from Bejing who had seen a picture of the tower with the Blind Controller function and was asking what the "Blind Controller" function was. The function didn't translate as sensible.

Lon More
Jean, the cook in the old North side LATCC was a Diamond who could do a mean steak, eggs and chips. A hark back to when both SATCC and EGLL were places for humans.

:ok:

"Blind Controller" . Hahaha. It might have been Colin Ward (God Bless him) who walked through the Approach Room with dark glasses and a white stick whilst there were visitors in the gallery!

HD
Nice one
reminds me of Capt Welford ex BA:ok:

Ohh indeed!!

Come in for a night duty (7.45 pm start) at the old LATCC (where Compass Centre now stands) and the lady in the canteen would be busy clearing up, so she usually told us to serve ourselves!
I was there on an afternoon duty one day and asked for steak and chips; she gave me 2 pieces of steak on a whole mountain of chips, charged me 5 bob.*
This was nothing compared to Gypsy Rose who used to do the graveyard shift at West Drayton; Len Vass told me he went down about 2 am and asked for egg and chips; she gave him 3 eggs on a big pile of chips. 'Not much there, that'll be one and six*' she said!

*If you youngsters don't understand pre-decimal money, tough!