Tag: Electrical Engineering

Edward Heath at Imperial: 1980

Edward HeathOn the 4th March 1980 Edward Heath (1916-2005) former UK Prime Minster, visited Imperial College. Later to become Sir Edward Heath, he was born 100 years ago today, July 9, 1916.

He spoke at Imperial to around 350 students in the Physics main lecture theatre. Mr Heath spoke at great length on the future economic policy of the world and the problems facing Third World developing countries as well as the developed ones.

Here, he is speaking very briefly with Mike Prosser (photo above) in the former college TV studio in electrical engineering. Once more we have a very old videotape recording from 36 years ago and it needed some tweaking to get a good picture and in particular, better colour. I am however rather pleased at how well it transferred to digital.

Colin Grimshaw July 2016

Pimlico Connection: 2006

Begun in 1975 as an undergraduate group project, the Pimlico Connection has grown over the years to become a key strand in Imperial’s widening participation activities. Emeritus Professor Sinclair Goodlad, founder of the initial project, recalls the early days of the scheme when just a handful of students began mentoring in local schools. “Originally we were looking at it primarily from the point of view of what students would gain from the experience – developing their communication skills and really getting to know their subject by finding ways to explain concepts clearly. However it soon became clear that there were great benefits to the schools as well.”

Students provide tutoring between 1-3 hours per week January-March. And now, in 2016, the Pimlico Connection is already celebrating its 40th year.

Colin Grimshaw April 2016

Star Wars comes to Imperial: 1977

Mark Hamill 3 38 years ago on 15 December 1977 Mark Hamill visited Imperial College to promote the forthcoming release of a new film. That film was Star Wars. We were lucky to get him to visit the TV Studio (then in Electrical Engineering Building) as part of the publicity rounds to promote the film. I suspect we’d never get a look-in these days, but back then no one had heard of the film and they needed every drop of publicity. Coming to the studio for the STOIC interview was closely timed because we’d been informed that he was next going to the BBC TV Centre for a live appearance on Blue Peter (the Children’s TV Show). The photo on the left was taken in the studio at the time of the recording. He was talking to James Sinclair who also happened to be the STOIC chairman at the time.

The day before the Mark Hamill recording we had also managed to get Gary Kurtz who was the producer for the first film and whose name seems to have almost disappeared when the film is mentioned these days.Gary Kurtz 1 Sadly this interview is one of those programmes now frozen in time on the old Ampex A format one inch videotape which sadly we cannot now play without a machine and those are now rare. We were still a few years away from moving into colour so the Mark Hamill interview is in black and white. For copyright the film clips are removed.

Because of the “Imperial Storm Troopers” and the fact that Mark Hamill was coming to Imperial College we bought him a T-Shirt. He proudly and immediately put on the Imperial College T-shirt and said he would wear it on Blue Peter, which he did a few hours later. He signed my autograph book “Galactically Yours, Mark Hamill”. Here then is the Imperial College connection to Star Wars from December 1977.

 

We made use of  the initial studio recording right away, but it was not ‘edited’ to neatly included the films clips until a later date. When you hear the reference by James to ‘earlier this year’ he’s referring to the academic year, which starts in October.

Colin Grimshaw December 2015

50 Glorious Imperial Years! 1965-2015

Colin in StudioOn Monday October 4th 1965 my 50 year association with Imperial College of Science and Technology (no Medicine then) began. It was my first day of working at the most amazing place I’d seen. And, all these years later and even though I’ve retired, my association continues with this Video Archive Blog.

If you’ve read or watched some of the videos in the blog then you will have seen various people talking about what the college was like ‘back then’. One quote that Rogers Knight made when we interviewed him in 2006 was that it was ‘a different place back then…’. Although he was referring to pre-war days I can concur with those feelings myself from when I joined Imperial in the 1960’s. Boy, how the place has changed since then. Just look at some of the videos in the blog and you’ll see what I mean. I recall the final fragment of the old Imperial Institute being demolished and Sherfield Building (then called College Block) being built. Before then, the walkway simply stopped at Electrical Engineering.

August 1967I don’t have any photos from 1965. But one photo which was taken, simply for fun, was in August 1967 with three colleagues, including Eddie Bristow on the far left. These were the very early days of using video at Imperial and in this case was exclusively in Electrical Engineering which used it for teaching, training and demonstrations. Looking through this blog will give you a better idea of how it’s been used in the years since then. But at the start it was not as easy as it is today. Videotape was the only recording method and even that was, at times, very difficult.

Philips EL3400In the black and white photo you’ll see our pride and joy, a Philips EL3400 one inch videotape machine which was FULL of valves and got extremely hot. Could you imagine anything running with valves these days? The image you can just see on the screen really is off of the videotape, the quality of which was none too bad. When you consider that videotape was only in service in the USA around ten years prior to when this photo was taken, great developments had taken place to achieve what was possible with this Philips recorder. Soon after, we replaced the recorder with an Ampex (one inch Ampex tape seen on the right),26082010060 made by the company that produced the first videotape recorder in the USA about ten or so years earlier. We stayed with this format until 1979 when we eventually switched into colour, using the Sony U-matic cassette format. If you read my two blogs on the MANY problems trying to now access these archive videotapes you’ll appreciate the saying “I wished we’d realised back then…”.

And finally, as this is a somewhat self-indulgent blog, here’s something almost 50 years old, but in fact it’s only 45 years ago. In early June 1970 I made a demonstration video for an Electrical Engineering student who had made a very basic video effects unit for the TV Studio. It was a crude demonstration because of the way the studio cameras were then able to run, but it made the point I think. This is just about the oldest video I have and I was just 19 years old, how times change! A former Imperial colleague of mine, Steve Bell, points out that there are not many people who can say they have a video of themselves that’s 45 years old.

Colin Grimshaw October 2015

IC Newsreel Number 1: 1970

Recently digitised from the video archive collection is the very first news-magazine programme made by the student TV service, STOIC. More than 50 years ago on the 17th February 1970 an experimental programme was made to ascertain the feasibility of producing such a news programme on a weekly (or at least a regular) basis. At this time, STOIC used the TV studio facilities of the Electrical Engineering Department, as seen over in the right hand photo and with me operating a camera.

The original plan was to produce a light hearted and simple programme, reflecting what was currently happening in and around college. However, at 10am on the morning of the recording on Tuesday 17th February, the Pro-Rector Lord Jackson (1904-1970), who was also Professor of Electrical Engineering, died. Plans were immediately changed and his colleague, the Head of the Electrical Engineering Department Prof John Brown (seen on the left in the video) appeared to pay tribute. This itself is a unique recording, having been made within hours of Jackson’s death.

Although this was only a trial programme, some effort had been put into trying to make it look as professional as possible. A filmed report (on 8mm film) was shot at a Touchstone weekend being held at Silwood Park. Piers Corbyn, the controversial students union president (1969-1970), appeared in an interview. Another filmed report was on the first major event to be held in the then newly opened College Block (now renamed Sherfield Building). The programme was presented and linked together by Vivienne Taylor who went on to present a local TV programme on London’s Thames Television.

The programme was shown the following day (18th February) in the then new Junior Common Room in College Block. A copy of the original flyer can be seen below. It’s amazing the recording has survived all these years. The original one-inch Ampex videotape still exists, but only because I had given STOIC the videotape to record on. I did so with the very intention of it being kept for posterity and all these years later, I’m glad I did! If I hadn’t, then like many BBC videotapes, it would have been erased and used again for another programme.

Colin Grimshaw February 2021

Academic interviews: Robert Spence 2015

Made available on Imperial’s YouTube channel is an archive interview between Professor Lord Robert Winston and Emeritus Professor Robert Spence. This was the second in a series of Academic interviews with current and past members of Imperial College London. I’ll say no more about the video as it’s mostly self explanatory. To see all of Bob’s videos featured in this discussion simply click on his name in the text above.

Professor Robert Spence, passed away on Friday 20th September 2024, at the age of 91.

Colin Grimshaw January 2015

Engineering the Hovertrain 1972

Proving extremely popular are the videos and films made with Professor Eric Laithwaite. Laithwaite Eng HovertrainIn this blog I’m pleased to be able to bring you one of several films that were in the personal collection of Eric Laithwaite and that I was lucky enough to be able to secure in the Imperial Archive after he’d died.

Engineering the Hovertrain was made in 1972 by the then, Central Office of Information. It’s about the only real example of the creation and operation of the experimental hovertrain vehicle the RTV31, seen running on the test track that was built in the UK.

Colin Grimshaw January 2015

Colin Vickery with Bob Spence: 1997

In 1997 Professor Bob Spence interviewed Dr Colin Vickery, a colleague of his from the Department of Electrical Engineering. The intention was to show the video during an Alumni event that Colin was unable to attend. I hope that maybe some of those same Alumni will watch that video once more.
Colin Vickery has very kindly sent me some words to put the video into context, so most of this is his hard work and not mine! And Bob Spence has provided me with the excellent photos that were taken at Bob’s 80th Birthday celebration in 2013, that I also attended.

Colin Vickery in July 2013
Colin Vickery in July 2013

Colin was, at the time of the interview, running a postgraduate section on microprocessor applications.  Bob Spence and Colin Vickery had shared a flat during the time that they were doing PhDs under Roy Boothroyd who was Prof Colin Cherry’s Reader. Colin Vickery had come back from industry where he’d spent a couple of years with the Plessey company working in a small research unit in Romsey and was appointed as a lecturer for a period, working for Cherry/Boothroyd and was then invited to join Prof Bruce Sayers in his Engineering in Medicine section where he stayed for many more years. Prior to this, he’d travelled to Houston, USA, where he joined a summer school which was run for a mixture of Medical and Engineering people. There he learned basic physiology, while the medical people learned basic electrical engineering.

Colin with Sinclair Goodlad
Colin with Sinclair Goodlad

Eventually, Bruce Sayers became Head of Electrical Engineering and Colin was given a postgraduate section devoted to microprocessor applications, working alongside colleagues Dick Wilde and Bill Cutler who were both on his staff. After a year or two they were appointed as consultants on the government Mapcon scheme (Microprocessor application consultants) and did a variety of feasibility and implementation studies including small hydroelectric projects, such as Wookey Hole and Chatsworth House in Derbyshire. He joined with Prof Anderson in a project, for a firm in Horsham, de-boning bacon backs using robotics. It was exhibited in the exhibition at the college in 1985 (City and Guilds Tech2000) which Margaret Thatcher opened and then toured; telling them all that, ‘..she knew all about bacon’ (her Father was a grocer)!

In June 1998, a year after this interview, he suffered a stroke, but continued to work for the college part time until 2010 when he was 75 years old. This interview is a reminder of those times now long past and some of the people that made up the college in the 1950’s and onwards.

Professor Robert Spence, passed away on Friday 20th September 2024, at the age of 91.

Colin Grimshaw September 2014

Professor Patrick Purcell: 1995

Professor Patrick Purcell (1929-2007) was described in his Times obituary as “Pioneer of computing and design“. As far as I know, this is the only interview made with Patrick, whom I got to know during his time as visiting professor of human computer interaction at Imperial College London. I had actually known him prior to that via LIVE-NET Video Conference from Northern Ireland linking through to Imperial.

Video Interface 1995
A Video Interface recording 1995

Until his death, he worked along side Professor Bob Spence (1933-2024), who commented after Patrick’s death “…when I realised that Patrick Purcell was approaching retirement from his appointment in Northern Ireland I immediately suggested to the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering of Imperial that he be invited to be a Visiting Professor. A very selfish act, no doubt, but one I have never regretted…”

At my suggestion, this interview was recorded for an outside company called Lantec and was in the occasional series called Video Interface. Because of Patrick’s depth of knowledge of all things ‘digital’, this was the obvious first question posed to him at the start of the interview by Steve Bell. It was recorded in the Imperial College TV Studio in June 1995.

Colin Grimshaw June 2014

Dennis Gabor Retrospective 2000

For the centenary of Dennis Garbor’s birth on 5th June 1900 we recorded this retrospective discussion between Professor Igor Aleksander and former Imperial Rector, Professor Sir Eric Ash. Eric Ash graduated from Imperial with a first class honours degree in electrical engineering in 1948 and received his doctorate four years later in 1952. His Ph.D. supervisor was Dennis Gabor, so he has first hand knowledge of the man and the research he was carrying out at that time. Eric Ash and Igor Aleksander have both been heads of Electrical Engineering Departments, Ash at University College London and Aleksander at Imperial College London. In this recording they discuss the work of Dennis Gabor that lead to him receiving the Nobel Prize in 1971 for his invention of Holography. I met Gabor just once, when he very briefly discussed with me his previous (unsuccessful) ideas for a flat TV tube (at the time, we were standing in the TV Studio in front of a Sony Trinitron colour TV).

This recording was made in the Imperial College TV Studio in May 2000.

Colin Grimshaw March 2014