All Our Yesterdays – a monthly look at Harlow in years gone by.

By Ian Beckett

LAST month’s local news history blog began with the words: “There are days, weeks, and months when some single news stories dominate the headlines and beyond. Times when enthusiastic journalists cry out to their editors “Hold the Front Page!” The first week in October 1963 was not one of those weeks”. 

For the Harlow Gazette, week ending 10^th November 1989 it very much was. The single news story occupying the front, lead with the headline “AXED – COSSOR SHOCK – 200 JOBS GO”.

The bombshell had been dropped on the employees of the Pinnacles-based company Cossor Electronics at the end of the first week in November, with bosses pointing the finger squarely at “unfair government subsidiaries, strictly NOT allowed under ECC rules” resulting in a loss of major orders due to dramatic price cutting by European competitors. This view was echoed by Harlow MP Jerry Hayes who described the job losses as “appalling.” He continued: “We have a company which is a world beater but has been clobbered by unfair subsidisations by France and Italy. I will be raising it in the House!”

The Gazette reported on the personal impact of the news: Glennis Monroe, from Old Harlow, who had worked for Cossor for three years had been told she would have no job after 30^th November. Glennis said “I felt very upset and tearful when they told me. I knew there may be some layoffs, but I didn’t think they were going to be from my department.” Single-parent Glennis continued “I think I’ll miss the people most, but I’m really worried about getting another job, especially so close to Christmas.”

Another “distraught” employee, axed after 16 years’ service, said “I felt choked when I found out this morning. Everybody’s disconcerted. I’ve been very happy here and it’s a real blow.”

Despite the losses, Cossor would continue to employ over 1,000 people with their trade in air traffic control radar and defence electronics described by bosses as “strong and viable”. However, Dave Barham, Secretary of Harlow’s Trade Union Council, was “knocked for six” by the news. Dave said “This is just part of a continuing trend of job losses in the town. If this goes on, we’ll have no jobs left. The government is intent on destroying the manufacturing industry and soon it will disappear.”

Cossor Electronics had moved to Harlow in 1958, a year before the company celebrated its centenary. “A brief history of Cossor Electronics” can be found as a special supplement at the foot of this blog. The aftershock of this economic bombshell of job losses would have sent ripples through much of Harlow’s community. Many of the new town’s earliest residents would have found work at Cossor, indeed many would have moved to Harlow precisely because they had found work at Cossor. Many of today’s families will have some kind of connection through friends or relatives to Cossor during the last four decades of the twentieth century. Indeed, one of my earliest temporary jobs during the college holidays was as a Kitchen Porter at Cossor’s work canteen and in the late 1980’s I spent two years as an Electronics Buyer at one of Cossor’s sister company’s Data Logic, also located in The Pinnacles.

Cossor stood as a giant of an employer in Harlow New Town’s industrial history and in fact in British Manufacturing History alongside the likes of Johnson Matthey, United Glass, Revertex, Schreibers, Longman Green, the Coop (CWS) biscuit factory, Standard Telephones and Cables (STC)  – which became the largest employer in the town with 3,000 at one time – and the Standard Telecommunications Laboratory, and Gilbeys (IDV) whose iconic building, completed in 1963, achieved listed status on listed on September 23rd, 1992, only to be demolished completely a year later, to make way for the new Sainsbury’s Supermarket. 

Some of Cossor’s equipment and details of its history are on display at Harlow Museum.

Their Hobby Horse

There is a tenuous connection between this next story and the previous one. I wonder if readers will spot it.

I love these kinds of stories because they show the majority of Harlow’s young people in the positive, interesting. and often invested way, that they are. The antithesis of the typical “young hooligans hanging around outside the shops” narrative.

The story reports that “Hobbies galore were shown off at a special exhibition at Mark Hall School.” More than fifty pupils set up over thirty exhibitions of their hobbies under the titles of Activities, Collections, and Sports. 

The exhibitions were judged by STC employees Liz Holter and David Riches, and Mark Hall Head Teacher told the Gazette reporter “they were very impressed, not only with the effort put in, but also with the knowledge the youngsters had about their hobbies.”

The winners in their respective categories were:  

Activities

1^st Place: Mark Pope (photography); 2^nd Place: Paul Luck (remote control planes)

Collections

1^st Place: Wayne Jacks (model planes); 2^nd Place: Scott Hannan and Matthew Wells (comics)

Sports

1^st Place: Ben Milbourn (canoeing); 2^nd Place: Matthew Wall and Nicholas Hughes (cycling)

There is a wonderful photograph of comic collectors Matthew Wells and Scott Hannan proudly in front of their display.

This photograph spurs me to ask my regular question: where are they now?

Ambulancemen petition for support over pay

This short news story had me trawling through the industrial archives for a number of reasons onto which I will come.

The story reports on a gathering of around forty demonstrators made up of ambulance crews and local Labour Party members who had joined forces to urge people to sign a “massive petition” to award a pay increase of more than 6.5%.

Among the protesters was Labour’s “new” parliamentary candidate for Harlow, Bill Rammell, who commended the ambulance crews, saying “All they want is a fair deal and they are keeping working while making their protest. They are definitely not putting any lives at risk by protesting.” The Gazette reporter went on to say, “an angry Mr Rammel demanded to know how Harlow’s MP, Jerry Hayes, could justify getting a 10.7% pay increase.” Mr Hayes retorted that “the Tory government wanted MP’s pay played down, but the Labour Party said pay should be much higher.” He continued “Ambulance drivers should certainly get an increase and there should be a pay review body.”

So, what had me reaching for the history books? This was 1989 and yet we were still talking about “Ambulancemen”? And ambulance drivers? What about equal opportunities? Were there no female ambulance staff? What about paramedics? When did they become the norm? A few years ago, I needed the support of our ambulance service on a number of occasions. Nine times of out of ten (no, I did need that many ambulances!) the crew were mainly women fulfilling a number of interchangeable roles.
Further research showed me that the first official female ambulance units were welcomed into the British Army in 1916, and women were allowed to drive ambulances in the UK during the Second World War. Many women volunteered for the London Auxiliary Ambulance Service, contributing significantly to the war effort. However, by 1965, when the London Ambulance Service was launched, only six percent of its workforce were women, reflecting a long-standing gender disparity in the profession that continued for the next few decades.

The term ambulanceman was not outlawed before the introduction of the Equality Act 2010. In terms of the emergence of the paramedic came from the USA in the 1960’s and was developed in the UK by Dr Douglas Chamberlain, who is credited with professionalising paramedics in Europe through training the first six “ambulance men” with advanced skills to handle cardiac emergencies in Brighton in March 1971.
What is interesting is that one of the consequences of the national ambulance dispute of 1989-90 was it became clear that there was a need for more paramedic training schemes, and recognition of a formal payment for the extended scope of practice.

Harlow town fireworks display went off with a big bang!

Finally for this month, no news report would be complete without covering how Harlow has lit up the skies for miles around, on or about the fifth of November. I am sure that readers will tell me otherwise, but I cannot recall an annual firework display in Harlow’s Town Park to be rained off, which considering the unpredictability of the great British weather is quite remarkable.
November 1989 was no exception, with the Gazette reporting that “thousands flocked to the Town Park to witness a great display of pyrotechnics on Saturday night”. The bangs and flashes lit a sea of faces, as some extraordinary special effects in the form of giant-coloured spotlights and huge flashing white lights loomed over the crowds on cranes.

Readers as old as I, will recall that in the sixties and seventies we had unregulated neighbourhood bonfires in various pockets across the town. For me, it was the Tye Green Village Green upon which we would build our community bonfires.

It was a wonderful way to get kids to clean up the streets as we sought to add anything we found that we considered suitable to add to the pile and we strolled down the cycle tracks. We would make our own Guys out of old clothes begged or “borrowed” from Mum. We would sit outside the shops in Bush Fair with these makeshift effigies, squeaking “penny for the guy” or push them along in discarded pushchairs, pestering people in the streets.

On Bonfire Night at these local events the fireworks would be limited to those brought along by families by and large, rockets and catherine wheels and sparklers for the kids. Teenagers would add unnecessary menace by setting off and throwing bangers and perhaps inevitably, the lack of regulation would lead to the occasional tragedy. However, it did seem that the community was better placed to organise and self-police such things in these distant days.

By now 1989 local authorities like Harlow Council had begun to restrict fireworks on public land, with the “free” civic display offered up as a safe alternative for the whole town. This approach, the legal powers to restrict, were enshrined in law through The Fireworks Regulations Act 2004.

The Gazette’s report reminded me that in the early days of the annual civic Bonfire and Fireworks Night the display was preceded by a mini-carnival. In 1989, Councillors Ron Nash and Harry Talbot led the way for “a colourful array of vehicles, floats and marching bands” towards the park. “A Troop of fire-eaters blazed the trail, while further back the Harlow Lions dynamic Batman display stole the limelight.”

At the original Longman House opposite Harlow Town Station, a grandstand view of the spectacular fireworks event was provided for guests from Sam’s Place and the Harlow Social Club for the Disabled.
In a creative piece of editorial art, immediately below the report on the town’s fun and festivities on bonfire night, is a report from Ailsa Mcintyre with the headline: Fire-Fighters on Alert.

The report reminds readers and residents that “for Harlow’s firemen bonfire night mean an extra workload and extra worries about out-of-control bonfires and the misuse of fireworks. But the dedicated fire-fighters reckon people are beginning to get the message of following the firework code.” A spokesperson for the Fire Service, Assistant Divisional Officer Tim Hinds said “It was quite a good, safe November the fifth, all in all. It seems that most people were careful with their bonfires and fireworks and avoided accidents.” In addition, Harlow Ambulance Service confirmed that “the weekend had been without incident.”

And finally…

For next month, the final edition of this regular “All Our Yesterdays” blog, I pick up and review the Millenium issue of the Harlow Star, Thursday 30th December 1999.

The promised “short” history of Cossor follows:

A brief history of Cossor Electronics

1959 The story of A.C. Cossor Ltd. began in 1859 when the company was established by Alfred Charles Cossor in Clerkenwell, London to manufacture scientific glassware.

1875 Alfred’s eldest son, also called Alfred Charles Cossor joined the company in 1875, and it was he who founded the A.C. Cossor electronics company. The company’s expertise in the manufacture of electrical glassware, such as early cathode-ray tubes and X-ray tubes, led the company to diversify into electronics.

1885 The younger son Frank Cossor joined the company and eventually took over the running of the original scientific glassware company which remains to this day as Accoson, a manufacturer of sphygmomanometers.

1902 The company produced the first British made Braun tube (cathode ray tube) and two years later experimental valves were produced by Cossor for Ambrose Fleming.

1908 A. C. Cossor left his father’s business to found his own company as a private company making scientific and electrical instruments. The expertise in the manufacture of electrical glassware, such as early cathode ray tubes and X-Ray tubes, allowed the company to diversify later into electronics.

1910 Alfred Charles Cossor died and W. R. Bullimore gained a controlling interest in the company. Bullimore went on to develop the first thermionic valves that Cossor marketed, incorporating market leading technology.

1914 – 1918 During the first world war the company was one of the first to produce valves in quantity for the war effort including large numbers of type R valves, a generic valve design produced by several other companies.

1918 The company moved to Highbury, to a factory called the Aberdeen Works. The office building, which was called Cossor House, is still standing and later formed part of London Metropolitan University campus.

PHOTO: Cossor at Highbury

1926 Ceased manufacture of filament lamps [5], and thereafter concentrated on valves, receiving sets and other electronic equipment, launching its famous “Melody Makers” radio sets – constructor kits that did much to popularise radio – in 1927.

1930 The First British RF pentode valve was made by Cossor, and two years later they introduced its first cathode ray oscilloscope.

1935 Cossor cathode ray tube was used in the Daventry Experiment for radar research, conducted using the BBC transmitter.

1936 Company sold its first television receiver.

1937 Receivers for the Chain Home primary radar system, the world’s first radar air defence system, were built by Cossor.

1938 On the death of W. R. Bullimore, the managing director and proprietor, the company was acquired by Ismay Industries which would be funded by public flotation of the company. A. C. Cossor Ltd became a public company.

1939 Once again Cossor switched to supporting the war effort, producing hundreds of receiving stations for the Chain HOME defence network, each the size of a caravan. Cossor developed GEE airborne radio location equipment, and other ground and sea-based radio communication equipment and became involved in the early development of airborne IFF radar. A shadow factory in the Wren Mill, Chadderton, near Oldham was established.

1945 Secondary radar for air traffic control became a key area of development, whilst the company’s valve operations were concentrated in one unit which became the new subsidiary Electronic Tubes in

1946. The Cossor Radar Ltd factory was established at Aldermaston for Sterling Cable Co.

1949 Cossor withdrew from valve manufacture when EMI acquired control of Electronic Tubes which continued to supply Cossor. EMI essentially acquired control of Cossor.

1953 The company began to manufacturer of TV sets.

1957 Reduced demand for radios and televisions that had left an overhang of stock that needed to be disposed, plus a cut back in government work led to Cossor reorganising to form a number of independent subsidiaries which had their own boards and would make decisions about their own businesses.

1958 Cossor sold its radio and television business, Cossor Radio and Television, to Philips. The radar and electronics part of the company moved to Harlow.

1961 Cossor was acquired by the Raytheon Manufacturing Co.

1968 Cossor became a supplier of visual display units made at Harlow for Honeywell computers, made in Scotland.

1972 Cossor Electronics won a Queens Award for its surveillance radar.

1974 The Data Systems division of Cossor Electronics was combined with Raytheon Data Systems to make a Europe-wide manufacturing and marketing organisation, Raytheon Cossor Data Systems. Cossor Raytheon went on to supply the computer equipment used in the Unicom word processing systems.

1978 Cossor diversifies into a systems company rather than just an OEM manufacturer, acquiring Data Logic which went on to have its own premises in The Pinnacles, Harlow.

1984 The company received their first order for its new Monopulse radar, this from Canada for civilian air traffic control; similar orders from Britain and Germany followed.

1992 The company were hired as advisers to the Civil Aviation Authority on the construction of new “en route” air traffic control centre.

1997 Raytheon Cossor Electronics became part of Raytheon Systems Ltd