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 A Potted Personal History (1985-1990ish) In 1985 my friend Andrew and I started at Wimbledon College, where we finally cemented a friendship that has stood the test of time to this day. I had not been particularly successful with my GCSE exams at the end of our three-year period at the high school, and thus I was not able to stay on and study for A-levels. I had been interested in both buildings and technical drawing for some time, but my failure at school had prevented me from progressing any further with my intended career in architecture. Still wanting to pursue a career involving buildings in one way or another, in 1988 I went to a nearby technical college to see what courses and qualifications they had to offer. I eventually enrolled on a Building Services Engineering course, which I discovered later was not really to do with buildings themselves but rather the services installed within, i.e. plumbing, electrics, lighting, heating, etc. Even though it was not what I ideally wanted, I did find it interesting and eventually qualified a year later, and subsequently accepted a job offer as an apprentice with Balfour Kilpatrick Ltd., a building services contractor whom I had visited for work experience during the course.
Years later, after I had transferred from Balfour Kilpatrick to my current employer, Haden Building Management Ltd, I worked at BBC Television Centre on and off for a period of about 18 months. As the Broadcast Engineering Services provider, our offices were located at the base of the East Tower, next door to the BBC’s own Facilities Management offices. Being this far removed from the main hub of the building, I can’t say that I was constantly bumping into major celebrities – in fact I can only count on one hand the number of noteworthy people I spotted throughout the entire time I worked there. However, on one occasion I was fortunate enough to come across something that was, to me at least, far more special than any celebrity I may have encountered.
Next Episode: A Potted Personal History (1990 – present)
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With
the exception of an internal transfer between inter-group companies, I
have remained with the Balfour Beatty Group since then, and will have
clocked up 15 years service in September 2004 (I’ve already made a space
on the mantle piece for my carriage clock). Incidentally, during my time
at Balfour Kilpatrick, I briefly worked with a guy called Nicholas
Courtenay, to whom I couldn’t help but mention the ‘real’ Nicholas
Courtney, and he admitted that he used to watch the show and remembered
the Brig, although he had no idea that he shared the actor’s name. During
the conversation, I mentioned the BSB Doctor Who weekend which was due to
be broadcast a few weeks later on 22nd and 23rd September 1990, but I
admitted that I had no access to cable television and would therefore not
be able to watch or record any of it. He then revealed that a friend of
his had cable TV, and subsequently arranged to get a few items recorded
for me. Even more coincidentally, we also had a guy at work called Mike
Yates, but he worked in a completely different department to me so I
didn’t really have anything to do with him. As if that wasn’t enough, we
had an occasional visitor to the building by the name of Tom Baker, whose
name I frequently heard announced over the PA system. 
A
colleague of mine and I would visit the infamous ‘BBC Canteen’ for lunch
on every occasion I visited TV Centre, and our route to the restaurant
block would take us through the circular scenery store located on the
perimeter of the main studio complex. On one particular occasion, as we
walked through the scenery store I noticed out of the corner of my eye a
tall rectangular blue box standing incongruously amongst some lighting
gantries. It was, of course, one of the official BBC TARDIS props, and I
was certainly not going to waste the opportunity to take a closer look,
much to the exasperation of my colleague who knew I was a passionate fan
of Doctor Who. After all the years I had been watching the series on the
television, I was somewhat surprised to discover that the entire prop was
made from moulded fibreglass, although I’m sure this fact is well
documented elsewhere. As there was no-one else around at the time, I took
the opportunity to open the door and go inside, something which I repeated
several times over the following few minutes, and I was amazed to see how
wobbly the whole thing was, not to mention very disappointed that the door
did not close with the resounding thud that it always seemed to on the TV!
After my few minutes of TARDIS-worshipping had passed, we continued our
journey to the restaurant block, during which I didn’t stop babbling to my
colleague about the various technical aspects of Police Box design which
I’m sure was falling on wilfully deaf ears.