The Night Train to Glasgow

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Mid-January 1962 in London was a pivotal moment in my career. Clutching a letter of introduction from my previous employer in Australia, I attended an interview at 9 Upper Berkeley Street, the London office of PYE TVT Ltd. PYE, a Cambridge manufacturer of television studio equipment, had supplied much of the gear at the Melbourne television station where I had worked for five years. The interview was probably the easiest I had ever had; they were desperate for experienced engineers to install and support their products.

They wanted me to start immediately and solve an issue at Scottish Television, Glasgow. The problem was that they couldn’t sync the video signal from their outside broadcast van with their studio, and the fault lay with a PYE Sync Slaving Unit. This device, known for its unreliability, required careful adjustment. Fortunately, I had two years’ experience with the same equipment in Melbourne.

That evening, I found myself at Euston station, boarding the overnight train to Glasgow. I was booked into a sleeper cabin, which made for a fairly comfortable journey. Arriving the next morning, I went straight to the studios of Glasgow Television. The Chief Engineer was in a sorry state, clearly under pressure as his job depended on fixing this issue. However, the sight of a 21-year-old fresh off the boat from Australia was likely the last thing he wanted to see.

Within half an hour, I diagnosed the problem: a ten shilling electrolytic capacitor had failed, a common issue in those days. Replacing the faulty part restored the station to normal operation. Everyone in the control room breathed a collective sigh of relief. The Chief Engineer, immensely grateful, invited me back to his office and promptly offered me a job on the spot. I had to tactfully decline, explaining that I had just accepted my current position at PYE. In the “Swinging Sixties,” having a technical skill made finding work in London remarkably easy.

This episode marked the beginning of an exciting chapter in my professional life, filled with new challenges and opportunities in the rapidly evolving world of television technology.