Bolton Institute of Technology

Bolton Institute of Technology (BIT) was the new Higher Education college which later became Bolton Institute of Higher Education (BIHE)
This is where I met Kathleen at the Saturday Night rock concerts in 1973. I remember waiting outside for the doors to open. Inside was loud rock music and two groups. Kathleen started to go there before me and saw some big groups like 'Hawkwind' and 'Vinegar Joe' (Elkie Brooks) I saw groups like 'Judas Priest', 'Dr Feelgood' and lots of local rock groups. Youngers Tartan Ale, Newcastle Browns and Steak Butties...I used to live for Saturday night at BIT! Sweet!

 

This photo was posted on Facebook showing the stage and room that was used on Saturday Nights.

As well as the social side of BIT, I also went on an evening course there in the tower block to learn about BASIC computer programming. It was truly amazing looking back now. In the room were 'terminals' like typewriters and you built your programme without any VDU to see what you were doing, making sure that you didn't make any mistakes. The computer that served the terminals was a PDP11 Mini-Computer that sat in the corner with lights flashing and wires everywhere. When you saved your work it was a paper tape full of holes that you rolled up, took home and brought back again to put into the reader so that you can carry on. I wrote my first comuter programmes then (we call the apps now)

I really enjoyed that course, I learned a lot and still use it now that the new 'Computing Curriculum' has now been developed in schools. It is like going back in time!

Things have changes so much now, the tower block and a lot of the buildings have been changed. Now it is Bolton University along with a huge sports and leisure centre. Across the road is the new Bolton College and Sixth Form College. It is very impressive!

Trotters Pub

Back in the old analogue days when I met my wife Kathleen we went to BIT (Bolton Institute of Technology) on Saturday nights to watch rock groups and freak out to loud music and Newcastle Browns. On Sunday things were a quieter, we went to the Trotters pub on Bradshawgate in Bolton. The Trotters was a strange place named after the nickname for Bolton Wanderers football club and quite close to the football ground at Burnden Park.

Sunday night was disco night upstairs at the Trotters, we went there a lot just to have a quiet drink and chat. The best you got in the way of rock was 'Radar Love' which I danced to once! So why do I think this place is special? Well, this is the place where we decided to get engaged and later married!
Also across the road was Mike Dzubias shop where I bought a lot of my electronic components. Next to that was the Clarence Hotel which was the venue for the Bolton and District Amateur Radio Society in the 70's.

The Trotters shut down and knocked down... I don't know why that was...strange!

RAYNET

 

Jack G8HIK and myself at the exhibition.

On Thursday I went into Bolton to look at the 'Preparing for Winter' exhibition. There were lots of things to see including the Emergency Services, Mountain Rescue, Gritters and RAYNET.
Only a couple of days earlier I was thinking to myself that I had not heard anything about RAYNET recently. I don't remember seeing anything in the magazine RadCom as well.

I had not been involved with RAYNET, but some of our club members from The Bolton and District Radio Society were active back in the 80's and 90's. I was surprised when I saw Jack G8HIK and Max looking after the RAYNET stands during the exhibition. It was nice to chat with them after such a long time!

 

Max and me with my grandaughter Melissa

 

 

Picture of Max around 1980 during a DF Hunt.

Draycott Street

Shortly after I was born my parents moved into a flat at Draycott Street on Halliwell Rd. I have a lot of vivid memories of this house. I remember the old record player in the corner with the green velvet around the record deck and the needles that had to be put into the arm head. We listened to my dads 78's.

In the other corner was our first television set, black and white! I loved to watch Popeye, Sparky the Battery Boy and Four Feather Falls. My bedroom had a fireplace and my Dad had a workshop in a small room upstairs, with a 'Wolf' drill that made a lot of noise and scared me. There was a shop joined on to the building and an old lady lived upstairs in the flats. Across the road was another shop that sold fishing stuff, I went there to buy some little fishing nets to play games like fishing in the mop bucket!

My Dad had a motorbike and sidecar, he would spend a lot of time in the yard tinkering with the motorbike, I remember riding in it with my Mum. When I was old enough, I went to Nursery school up the road at Wolfeden Street, on a Friday my Dad would buy me a Matchbox car from the shop on Halliwell Rd. Also just round the corner was my Aunt Gladys who lived on Halliwell Road. When I took this photo I felt strange because although everything has changed now, I can still see the old slate walls around the house and the motorbike. Happy memories!

Bullough's TV Shops

Bullough's Radio and Television had their Head Office and service department on Manchester Rd in Bolton. When I was at college some of my friends were apprentices there. At the back was a 'dump' where they would throw away panels from old televisions and radios. It was a goldmine for components when I wanted to build something when I was about 13. I remember once carrying a huge bag of old panels and bits from there into town then crossing the Johnson St footbridge over the railway station. I got stopped by two 'big lads' who promptly beat me up for no reason at all, probably because I was helpless with my big bag of bits. I still carried them home on the bus even though I was bleeding after my encounter.

Later in the 70's Bullough's changed it's name to Rumbelows and then later still was taken over by Focus Ltd. Now all these television companies have gone. Only Curry's remain...
The Bullough's Head Office building still remains, but for other purposes!

Back in the 60's Bullough's was one of the major television rental stores in Bolton. The store was on Knowsley Street and it also had a great record shop inside the store where you could listen to music in one of the small sound booths. I used to like going there when I was young, even though I didn't have enough money to buy a single record which cost 7/6p at the time. If you were really lucky, the girl behind the counter would play a record for you, even if you were only 11 years old. (as long as the boss wasn't around) The record shop was featured in the film 'The Family Way' Hayley Mills as Jenny, worked in the shop and some scenes show the inside of shop as well.

Harlow Electronics

 

My first company car in 1975

In 1975 I was 21 and had just finished my apprenticeship in electronics, I decided to move on from my job at Telefusion. I got a job at a small company in Bolton called Harlow Electronics. The name 'Harlow' was derived from the companies original directors - Ken Harris and Kevin Ludlow. They had two shops, one on Halliwell Road in Bolton and the other on Market Street in Farnworth. Both shops sold and rented televisions, mainly Thorn televisions (Ferguson, HMV) Ken Harris later became service rep for Thorn based at Chetham Hill in Manchester. I met him a few times when I worked at Telefusion.



On the roof is a home made mag mount 1/4 wave for 144Mhz inside the car was my Pye Cambridge transceiver.

 



The job came with a company car, which was a green Ford Escort. At first I had a second hand car, but later was given a new one. It was great having my own car, I had only passed my driving test a few months before. The workshop was at the Farnworth shop. Most of the time I worked on field service repairing televisions in the home and also delivering and setting up new colour televisions.
I remember that my service manager was called Kevin, Aziz was the other engineer and the driver was (I think) called Dave.
I worked there for a year. At first I really enjoyed being out on the road in my car, but later I found it quite hard working with a small company. Prospects looked gloomy and didn't want to stay. In the end I returned to Telefusion and later TAM Techserve where I got a company car again. I guess I felt claustrophobic working at Harlow, not for me.

Some years after I left, Harlow set up as an electronics company in an old mill on Chorley Old Road. They did close circuit television systems. After a few years the company seemed to disappear in the turmoil of the electronics industry in the 80s and 90's.

Granny's Garden

When I was born my grandmother (who I called 'Mam') lived in this house. For a time I lived there in Aldersyde Street during my first months before moving to a flat in Draycott Street. I loved coming to this house when I was a bit older. I used to spend weekends her when I was little and remember watching television on Saturday nights. When I was 8 years old I caught two buses and went to my Mam's house one Sunday afternoon on my own without my Mum and Dad knowing. I can remember the shock on my Mam's face when she realised that I had come alone!

When I was 11 I wanted to go to Hayward School because it was so close to my Mam's house and I could go there before and after school. When I passed my 11+ tests I was able to go to Hayward Bilateral and got my dream to go this house every day and even dinner times for a cup of tea and a cake.
At the side of the house was a coal shed and a cupboard, in the cupboard there was a pile of car bits that my Dad put there. Later my Uncle Bill lived there and started to make a drive for his car, but never completed it. You can see the gap in the privet fence.
Just up the street was a radio amateur at number 19, his callsign was G3ITK and his name was Percy, he had a brilliant long wire antenna which stretched across to a house at the back.

This photo taken about 1968 with my Mam and Dad (Grandmother and Grandfather) along with my brother. The poles at the sides of the door have gone now, but I enjoyed climbing up them.

I have a lot of good memories of this house!