Alan Dodson - what the Royal Signals did for me


At the age of 88, I have decided it was time for me to tell the Royal Signals what they did for me.

During the war my mother and I went to Radley Collage where my Grandmother was chef, and my mother got a live-in job as a dairy maid. We, my mother and I, shared the Bursar’s bungalow with a very secretive man who seemed to avoid us, but one day, after we had been there for about 6 months, my mother said the man in the other room wanted to see me.

Being an urchin from the East-end of London my reaction was, "It wasn't me!”, but when I went to see what he wanted he gave me a cigar box to which he then attached two wires. Then he gave me a pair of headphones and opened the box. It was, of course, a xtal set. I was hooked and spent almost all the rest of my days of the war playing with it.

The day the war ended my mother handed in her notice. A week later we were back in London, and I started building my own xtal set.

About two years later I built my first one valve set; two more years it was a 2-valve radio. After leaving school three years later, I was in the Royal Signals.

Later, in basic training, we were interviewed for trade selection, I said I wanted to be a technician, but was told although my technology was fine my mathematics were not good enough. I could be accepted as an OKW where I could expand my technical knowledge and the Education Corps could improve my numbers.

On demob I went to a radio communication site for the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation in the Cotswolds as an operator, but then changed to radio tech. Five years later I was promoted to a radar station in Kent; seven years again more promotion to Heathrow to specialize on the radar processors in order to replace all the other obsolete processors.

Due to the meanness of the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) accounts department I had to convert the cheap plot extractors which were replaced by the Swedish manufacturers’ original equipment, and with 3 other specialists we formed the Plot Extractor Team. The team were one who did the switchmode power (in those days there were no matched transistors); a young software expert; someone who never worked in the field but rather at the Air Traffic Control (ATC) centre and knew all the people in charge of the various depts; me, the plot extractor man. After three years of sorting things out we started our main duties. These were to visit each radar site of the CAA from Ventnor to Fitful Head in the Shetlands; to strip each extractor back to the settings as it was in the factory; to check it was all working then restore it to its operational programming. A report was then sent to the chief technical officer of the CAA.

When we had completed our first two sites we were told that four staff members was too many and we must reduce by one - the least needed must go. Soon after this we were then told that the youngest member was young enough to take a more modern posting, which left just two of us. Since the other member was about eight years older than me and was going to retire two years early, this left me doing it all.

Of course, there was more to the job than the annual inspections. There were daily faults arriving from all the ten sites, each of which had two plot extractors. As each inspection would take about five days and any operational faults would take about the same amount of time, I was spending a lot of time away from home. When the Swedes sold a piece of equipment they would also offer a backup insurance to put right any thing the purchaser could not repair. Some time in the late 1980s they contacted the CAA HQ informing them that their staff who were involved with the Plot extractors, had retired/moved/passed over/were working on many other tasks and had forgotten all about the extractors. A short time later they asked if I could be their agent for the Russian radars. I agreed and accepted the role.

Shortly after this they then asked the CAA if I could be their agent for Israel to provide equipment and again I accepted. However, the Israelis were very tight on security and would not reveal any details, but after a lengthy delay they were clearly satisfied with my security and agreed to my terms and said I would go in two weeks. The very next day as soon as I got in to work I got a phone call and was told my Israel trip is stopped as Her Majesty’s government has withdrawn all co-operation with Israel. I found out why when I watched the 6pm news where Israeli solders were filmed breaking the arms of Arabs in Israel.

Just think what the Royal Signals can do for YOU.