大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War site by a volunteer on behalf of Mrs Barbara Sutton and has been added to the site with her permission. Barbara fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

Barbara left her home in 1940 aged 20 and moved to London to train with the 大象传媒 to become an engineer.

Barbara says: It was frightening being away from home for the first time and the London blackout was quite a shock. Finding digs was difficult - the 大象传媒 hostel was full - so I went to the YWCA.
Not many people know that women took up this work and played a fundamental role in ensuring that vital information got overseas. I was chosen to manage the operation and maintenance of transmitters and after inital training at Maida Vale was sent to Daventry to become one the shift team there. I moved to Long Buckby with Anne Packham and found digs. Cynthia Toombs joined us and eventually we all worked together up Borough Hill at Daventry.
The men weren't entirely welcoming to the 4 or so women who arrived, and it was clear that the girls had a lot to prove. The chief engineers had a rigorous checking and testing process - I passed these and was promoted to a TA Grade 1.

Working in the Drive Room feeding the programmes to the various transmitters required quick and deft work, with just 30 seconds to do this sending information to the right route - which was overseas.

Daventry during the war was quite a small town and the 大象传媒 in their off duty periods produced concerts and particularly one notable pantomime in Foundry Place which went down very well with Daventry people.

Many people went to great lengths overseas to secretly listen to our programmes, often endangering their own lives to do so.

At home in England during the war families realised the importance of keeping information under wraps and in my case with a brother flying in bombers and I was in transmitters and yet we never talked of this to each other.

After the War Barbara was invited by D. C. Birkinshaw (who was Chief Engineer at Daventry and was to be the engineer in charge of television) to join the operations team at Ally Pally, where she became Valve Engineer with the Maintenance Section.

As a 大象传媒 pensioner I read in Prospero, the 大象传媒 paper for retired employees, that it was planned to hold a Wartime Party at Television Centre on November 17th and so I phoned and volunteered to attend and tell my wartime story.

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