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A bit of computer history

I can remember the first computer I ever saw. It filled an entire room, and it could control a typewriter that would produce documents unmanned. This must have been about 1970, and I have no recollection of what the computer was, or who it was made by. In those days computers were not considered seriously, and certainly nobody would have imagined the growth of the computer industry.

Many other changes came and passed me by, but around the early 80s, I decided to buy a computer for the mail order company I was running at the time. I needed it mainly to keep control of a growing mailing list which started out at a couple of thousand addresses, but grew to something over 30,000. A card index system was just not sufficient. So I invested in a computer and began learning how to use it. The computer was an Apricot, not a PC, this was before the PC dominated the world, and it had an incredible 10Mb hard disk! Yes 10Mb, and I was lucky, because many people at the time were using computers that ran entirely off floppy disks. I later invested in a second machine, which had a 20Mb hard disk -- stop laughing.

In the early years I learnt a lot about the way computers worked and software. These were pre-Windows days, so all the programmes were typed longhand as it were. By 1991, my circumstances had changed, the mail order company had become a victim of the recession, and I started offering software support to local businesses. Four years later I had begun building computers and fixing broken computers. I also started servicing and reselling used computers, because a lot of people were learning about PCs and new machines were still expensive.

Later on we decided to move into corporate clearance. This is where you go out collect redundant and broken computers from commercial clients. We began processing the recovered computer equipment, making one good computer out of two bad ones, and so on. If we couldn't fix it, or it was too old, we dismantled it and broke down the waste, so that it could be environmentally recycled. We also had to take care of data security. We had about 4000 square feet of warehousing, and were bringing in van loads of computers every week. We had so much stuff that it was difficult to sell it fast enough! Sometimes we even gave it away, just to get it out the doors.

Surprisingly enough, although we were a comparatively small company, we worked with some blue chip clients. We did a huge amount of work for GUS (the people who ran Kays catalogue), travelling to sites all around the north west. In the car world, we cleared for Vauxhall and Honda. In the financial world we did clearances for NPI, Forward Trust and HSBC, we did estate agents Black Horse. We did industrials such as Gerber Foods, Encase and Linfood. We did a number of retail clearances, I've forgotten many of them, but I remember doing one for B&Q.

There were some amazing experiences during that time. I recall one clearance where we were in the City of London, clearing from a bank on the corner of Leadenhall Street. Everything had to be carried from an office high up, down to ground floor level, using a swish lift, with glass panels inside. We did another bank in High Holborn as well, but that had a car park at the back. Another bank in a difficult place was in Princes Street, Edinburgh, and that had all the equipment stored in the basement, so it had to be carried upstairs. Perhaps the most memorable clearance we ever undertook, was for Hill House Hammond, the insurance broker. We had to clear equipment from almost every one of their shops throughout the UK. I can't recall how many collections that was, certainly in the hundreds, but it presented a great logistic problem. Our van could only clear about 15-20 sites before it was full. We couldn't use a larger vehicle, because many of the shops were not accessible to big vans, so we had to divide the country up into bite size chunks to complete the job. The plan was to be at the first shop for 9am when they opened, and then to travel on to the next, in a logical progression. The last pickup had to be completed by 5pm and then it was a drive to somewhere close to where the work would start the following morning. We didn't have GPS in those days, so most of the navigation had to be done from maps, and I became an expert at finding my way around most cities. Because it was not so easy to predict how many pickups could be done during the day, around mid-afternoon it was time to phone the office with a progress report, so that evening accommodation could be booked. I did many of the clearances myself, and when I could, I took either or both of my sons with me. It was a real family experience and a great time.

Over the time we were doing clearances, i travelled hundreds of miles, sometimes with a driver, sometimes driving myself. It is still a matter of pride to me that I have visited almost every city in the United Kingdom, and there are still a lot of places I can drive the main routes without a map.

Of course, all good things come to an end, and what finished it for us, was that I developed an allergy to dust. I had always been slightly allergic, but I was getting to the point where the dust made me really ill, even when I wore a dust mask. Secondhand computer sales were not doing so well, because new prices were lower, so we sold what remained of the business to a guy in Wales, who seems to be still going strong.

For some years the computer business lay dormant, although it was almost impossible to get completely away from them, because so many people knew that I knew how to fix them. But I was still having the problems with dust, and every time I opened up a machine I began to wheeze. With a bit of bribery, I managed to get my boys to help with the fixing. They did the dusty bits, while I supplied the knowledge. The system worked, and we fixed computers, while they both soaked up lots of knowledge.

We decided to go back into fixing computers again because my eldest son, Tim, was at college and needed an income, and my former engineer had moved back into the area and was looking for occasional work. So it made sense. And of course there are few people who have had the breadth of experience that we have had over getting on for thirty years. I guess I must have handled thousands of computers, and my boys grew up with them all around them.

So that's it really. A bit of history, but I hope it gives you confidence to deal with us.

Stephen