Another long gone service, in 1968 there were over 1 million subscribers.
If you have any memories or thoughts to share feel free to comment below.
Another long gone service, in 1968 there were over 1 million subscribers.
If you have any memories or thoughts to share feel free to comment below.
I live in Leeds. We had British Relay until the late seventies I think. When the Emley Moor transmitter fell down, we were the only house in the street that still had any TV. I think Relay had a tie in with Visionhire as we always rented our TV there.
I was a showroom. Manager in eltham London up to 1972. What a great company to work for
Were you employed by British Relay and did they have a Pension Scheme?
Does anyone know if there was ever a model car made of there vehicles? Apparently the blue was patented and called, ‘British Relay Blue’? Please contact me at davehughesmp@gmail.com
Started working at Trafalgar Radio & TV Greenwich London in 1963 then taken over by British Relay then Visionhire then Granada TV untill I left in 1998 So many happy times. Michael J Mooore
A bit late but my dad John Rice worked for Trafalgar tv back in the 50s 60s.
Hi Michael, I worked for a short time in early seventies with British Relay and was wondering if they had a pension scheme?
This is a good write up of the British Relay service in Whitehaven, along with some other observations about the TV rental trade in the town.
https://www.transdiffusion.org/2004/01/01/rentals
I’m curious about the backroom aspects of British Relay. Was it coax they deployed to feed houses? What was the length limit?
I worked as an apprentice for British Relay Electronics who made the transmission systems, behind certain British Relay showrooms there would be a sub station for the local area, these consisted of choke and transmission bays using valves of 1kw capacity, they sent the the signal on multi core and at each house they had a splitter box, the circuit board was known as a biscuit.in London where i was based they leased roof tops off the council and housing assoc for sole use preventing many a rooftop aerial
I used to push the wires of a loudspeaker into various outputs on the multisocket and pick up lots of radio and TV sound
My late father, Ray Wood, was a British Relay area manager based in Hanwell from the mid-to-late 70s. He chose redundancy when the Visionhire takeover happened and opened his own business in Scotland. Dad regularly organised social and promotional events as part of his job, including a staff trip to Le Touquet as I recall. I have three T-shirts still in their packets which say ‘British Relay – to try me is to love me’ in red, white and blue. Would anyone like them?!
Omg Wow. I knew your Father. He was a tall gent with dark hair. He reminded of Max Bygraves. He gave me my first job from school as an apprentice TV engineer based at relays main repair depot in Trumpers Way Hanwell. I have fond memories of those days working there. I to was made redundant when Visionhire took over because they closed the service centre down and put all the engineers out on the field. I was 18 and didn’t drive so was outed.
I remember ray .I came to Trumpers way from the eastcote shop.i worked with dick Hampshire.raj Patel and chas khatra.i also remember a few others
Hi Eve, I worked for a short time in early seventies with British Relay and was wondering if they had a pension scheme?
I worked at the eastcote shop when your dad ray was in charge there also moved to hanwell.knew him well.trying to remember the eastcote shop address.if you know please tell me
I started work at British Relay as an apprentice electronics engineer in 1976, at the Harehills office, Leeds.
I looked after the servicing of TVs, radio and PA in hotels, hospitals and factories, really loved that job. I was fortunate enough to be kept on with Visionhire Electronics and stayed on until 1988. Great times!
Now then Graham longtime back enjoyed BR Special services what you up to now
I joined BRW in 1958 and worked at Station 14 in Shepherds Bush, I was very happy there we had plenty of overtime, the wire men were a great bunch of lads, there was always one stayed back late at night to look after the equipment in the seller. I remember the customers telling that the air rade alert would come over the radio speakers before the main one sounded so they got down to the shelters first. I stayed at the same job for 33 years and took redundancy from Granada in 1992.
Hi I worked For British Relay from 1977 in Northfield Birmingham as a receptionist. .
Eventually taken over by Viaionhire in March 1979 .
After a number of years taken over by Granada and Becoming manager at Northfield Bham ,I eventually transferred to Cornwall.
I transferred as in with Granada to a Box Clever shop and completed 27years service .
feeling quiet proud I had seen tv through the times .
Hi Carole,
I worked with you back in the 1980’s at Visionhire Northfield, when I started Graham was the manager, the staff were Carol, Heather, Jacqui, Steve. Hope you are well, I had heard you moved to Cornwall.
When I was at school in England in the late 1960s/early 1970s I was nuts about radio and got my ham radio licence at the age of 16. My dad had a film and theatre props hire company in Peterborough Road, Fulham, next to a British Relay repair workshop and during the 1970 Xmas school holidays fixed up for me to work in this workshop for a few weeks. My job was to replace defect line output transformers in BR tv sets and on Fridays I was given my wages in a small brown envelope (tax deducted). What I didn’t know was that my dad had slipped the BR manager some cash to pay for my “wages”. This was my first work experience. Now at the age of 68 I’m still a dab hand with the soldering iron and will remember the resistor colour code until the day I check out.
i have an apache Indian doll given to me by my uncle a British Relay engineer in the 1960’s. Does anyone else have one of these dolls?
Yes, I have five of them. In case you are not aware, they were mascots for the “Red Arrow” TV rental chain, later to be rebranded as the one you probably remember, Granada Television Rental.