Interviewee:  John Gardner , FBCS  CITP                                                     D.O.B: 1937
Interviewer:  Graham Briscoe
Date of Interview:  Unusually, because of the Covid-19 lockdown, the oral history consists of answers to questions sent by the interviewer in March 2020.

Editor:  Frank Land

Abstract: Trained as an apprentice engineer and spent 7 years working with EMI.  Saw advert from LEO for engineer but wanted to leave engineering and applied to join LEO as a bureau programmer at Hartree House. Joined LEO in 1962 just as LEO ii/5 was being phased out for LEO III/1.  

Worked, using first Intercode, then CLEO on a number of bureau applications including Heinz production control, and on the transfer of the Heinz bureau jobs from LEO II to their own LEO III.  Progressed rapidly becoming responsible for payroll and share registration applications.

With the long-term future of LEO dubious enticed to Honeywell (UK) by a job offer that could not be refused, to work on their H200 operating system.  After 7 months I moved on to be a consultant for Hoskyns System Management which was being set up as a subsidiary to Hoskyns Consultancy and where the LEO experience was much more relevant.  Worked for them for seven years, but then found that the nomadic life that was required of consultants to advance was not compatible with having a young family so joined London Transport IT and worked for them for 20 years until retirement.  

Restrictions: Non known

No recording exists for this interview.

Transcript :

* John Gardner, FBCS, CITP
Born 1937 in Brighton.  Farther retired (64 when I was born), previously worked for a wine importer in Liverpool.  Mother retired, previously receptionist at a London Bridge club.  My main early interest was meccano -not easily available post war!
* Education:  Schools, further education, university.  What subjects interested you, fired your imagination.  What subjects did you take?  Any special events or incidents having a bearing on what you studied?  Did you do National Service?  If so what did you do and where did you serve?
Educated Brighton College.  Best subjects were mathematics and science.  Could not go to university due to very poor foreign language skills (then an essential requirement for university) therefore decided to go for an apprenticeship.
* Finding a Career:  Career advice at School or University.  What career did you envisage and why? What were your ambitions?  Influence of parents on career.  How did your career start?  Had you heard of computers before you started you career.  If so, how had you heard and what did you know?  Had you heard of LEO or Lyons? What did you know about those companies or any other computer companies?  Did you have friends or family who had gone into computers?
From a school contact found a suitable employer EMI Research in Hayes Middlesex (1956 to 1962).  Worked on airborne radar electronics which provided automatic exemption from National Service. 
Completed four-year apprentice obtaining, by day release and evening studies, an HNC in Electronics including a two-year course for IEE membership. IEE subsequently renamed IET.
The team I was working with had been designers for the EMIDEC computer so I considered a career with computers and investigated EMI’s own  computer but did not pursue that as I saw an advertisement for LEO computers.
* Joining Lyons or LEO:  When did you join?  How did that happen?  Who interviewed you?  Did the interview make any special impression on you? Did you go direct to LEO or another part of Lyons?  If so what did you do and when did you transfer to LEO?  What was your first job when you joined LEO?
Applied for job with LEO computer at Minerva Road site which would probably have been with design and development of micro-programmes for LEO III, however I felt I wanted to get away from using a soldering iron and threading ferrite beads onto wire frames which did not look very interesting so I switched my application to be a Bureau programmer.
Attended interview at Hartree House where they were setting up programming teams for LEO III/1.  Interview process was interesting: - arrived I think at 8.30am, attended introduction, then lecture on flowcharting followed by a test.  After that potential operators were interviewed while potential programmers had a second lecture and test on programming (simulated intercode).  That was followed by three interviews (with Helen Jackson, Geoff Pye and another) with a firm job offer made at about 7.30pm in the evening. – quite a day but very impressed with the process and immediate decision.
* Career with LEO:  Take us through your LEO career mentioning dates if possible.  Which computers and your role as the years passed?  If original development, what was the systems analysis procedure? What were the program development procedures? What do you remember of these years?  Impressions of your colleagues and managers?  Memorable incidents, including funny ones.  Any feelings that you were at the forefront of business or computer innovation?  Was the job exciting or boring?  Did you work with LEO customers?  Bureau or purchasers?  Who were they? Review the experience of working with customers. When did you leave LEO? Were you there when LEO I was finally switched off? Were you there when LEO II/1 was finally switched off? What made you leave?  When did you leave?
I commenced work on the top floor of Hartree House, Queensway, in a large open plan room seated like clerks in a grid of tables, each Team Leader at the front facing their team and the bureau Programming Manager Helen Jackson sat in the rear corner overlooking everyone.  All very formal, eyes down with minimal talking.  Probably based on Lyon’s own clerical offices.  Despite this there was a very good team spirit and comradery of programmers.
A very comprehensive training course was provided; I cannot remember how long but it may have been three months.
When I joined in 1962 LEO II/5 was in operation as a bureau machine and shortly after I joined LEO III/1 was installed for testing, development of bureau applications and to provide a service to clients until their own LEO system(s) were installed.  Initially all the programming was in intercode – an advanced assembler level language.  Sometime latter CLEO was available: equivalent to a very sophisticated BASIC including functions especially for commercial applications – e.g. mixed radix arithmetic (for direct calculation in £sd or various imperial weights units (Lbs, cwt and tons), and a very powerful print line set up instruction via tables.
At that time very formal and detailed flow charts were produced and signed off by a superior prior to any coding.  I had a good affinity for the work and found it very satisfying.  Developed my own methodology for design of systems which could be applied to almost any application which I always used for the rest of my programming career (wish I had patented it!).
Realised that we were at the forefront of development, in fact after attending a subject course (e.g. program planning) one was often expected to give or lecture on the next running of the course.
Although a trainee I had joined as a relatively experienced person having worked for some 7 years, previously at EMI. Many joiners were straight from college or university so I was expected to and did advance fairly quickly which was very satisfying.
Main projects in sequence were:
Heinz production control system where John Phipps was the Project Leader and I wrote the data validation program. The application was developed and run on the LEO III service bureaux and then transferred to their own machine near Harrow when it was delivered (Editor: LEO III/22, 1964).  They had separate recipes for their products for each of their three factories.  Basically, a stock and production planning application. The mixed radix facility was greatly used for the different weight units used in product recopies, however great care had to be taken to ensure the correct radix was used, especially when exiting subroutines. I remember one occasion when I think they were short of several tons of salt which would have stopped the production line, fortunately it was found to be their data entry error not a program error.  After running the system on the service bureau, it was handed over to Heinz to run on their own machine.  I remember going in one weekend as a favour to help them when they had a problem and subsequently finding a very welcome Christmas food hamper left under my hedge at home.
My next project was Allied Suppliers payroll for which I was responsible.  Fairly standard with some interest twists, I remember that Branch bonus was dependant on performance, but if stock losses were too small either the Manager was cheating or stock was not displayed as well as it should be! They had a strict cut off line that if profit fell below a set point the Branch was closed.  In those days there were no standard tax routines so we had to develop our own tax calculation routine from first principles by formulae which had to be able to adjust easily for any changes in rules and rates.
Next I was responsible for a bespoke payroll system for BHC (British Hydro Carbon) based at Grangemouth in Scotland and Port Talbot in Wales. I well remember spending ages finding a 2p reconciliation error in their Provident Fund.  One of the requirements of the job was that data was brought down by train from Scotland and by car from Wales each week, processed overnight and the printed results returned the same way next day.  The only time the dead-line was missed was when there was a train accident to Scotland and part of the trip had to be made by taxi.
I was then responsible for the conversion of the Glyn Mills RAF officer’s payroll from LEO II to LEO III.  Under the direction of Mary Blood (Editor: Later Mary Coombs) who had developed the LEO II original application.  This was a very sophisticated payroll including calculation of adjustments for changes to back rates for a wide range of extra payments and deductions (which may overlap previous changes in prior years).  I was very impressed with what they had achieved on LEO II. 
Having become a bit of a specialist in Payroll, I was then responsible for conversion and enhancement of the LEO II standard payroll and assisted marketing to sell/tune it to many different bureau and client companies.
Finally, I took over responsibility for the Bureau share registration system.  I remember our share registration Team Leader being the only women in a board room of senior brokers she was very well respected and made quite an impact on a system which if late in providing results could have a very major impact on the brokers.
With the merger of LEO and ICT I was a frequently passenger on the train between London and Kidsgrove concerned with the company’s policy for payroll and share registration
Add hoc incidence that I will always remember
LEO was very much an equal opportunities company, but following Lyons rules two partners could not work in the same office, so when two married the man, if the junior of the two, had to leave.
Input was mostly by 5, or 7-hole paper tape.  One application Home Grown Fruits (not one of mine) had very long blocks of data with block check totals – if it failed on first read, then the chances of a successful subsequent read reduced due to the wear and tear of the long blocks leading to increased unreliability.   I also remember one Christmas Eve having to persuade one of the punch operators to delay joining in the celebrations to punch some urgent data – not popular.
After one extended day going all through the night and having an excellent wet shave at the barbers the next morning to keep me going for the day.
One late session, when a program bug could not be found [Jim Feeney] got out the microplain routines for the suspect instruction and found an error in the microplain code leading under abnormal condition providing an answer of ‘-0’ which caused an error.
Location of Hartree House above Whitelies Department store, Bayswater enabled us to use Whitelies bank which kept shop hours rather than bank hours.
* Home life:  Where you married before joining LEO or later or not at all.  Children?  Home/work balance?  How did that affect relationships?  
I married early at 21 (recently had our 60-year marriage celebration with letter from the Queen).  Having done my qualification via day release and evening work the hours were not onerous although it took some time to adjust from a 25-minute bike ride to work to an hour commute by train.  While at LEO we had three children. 
* Career after LEO:  What did you do in your subsequent career?  How did it compare to working with LEO?  Did your LEO career influence your subsequent career and if so in what way?
With the long term future of LEO dubious I was enticed to Honeywell (UK) by a job offer I could not refuse, to work on their H200 operating system.  However, the work was a subcontract from the American head office and I missed the customer contact.  So after 7 months I moved on to be a consultant for Hoskyns System Management which was being set up as a subsidiary to Hoskyns Consultancy and where my experience within LEO was much more relevant.  I worked for them for seven years, but then found that the nomadic life that was required of consultants to advance their career was not compatible with having a young family so I joined London Transport IT where I worked for 20 years until I retired.  So after LEO all my career has been with IT.
* Professional activities: Are you a member of the British Computer Society or other body such as IEE (now IET)?  If so where you an active member?  How?  Did you maintain this in your retirement?  Have you read learned papers or articles on computers, attended conferences, or read any of the LEO books?
While with EMI I joined the then IEE as was expected of professional engineers.  So when I joined LEO it was natural to join the BCS where I was a fairly early member (membership number 5103). I retained my IEE/IET membership and in due course obtained chartered status (CITP) and also CEng membership.
While with London Transport I attended BCS London Branch meetings, ending up as Chairman.  I also became for a time Regional Branch Representative on the BCS Council.  Later I joined the BCS Membership Committee which I served on for many years in London and then Swindon.  I was awarded Fellowship of the BCS in 2005.
* Retirement:  When did you retire? What did you do in your retirement?  Did you maintain contact with your ex LEO colleagues?  Did you attend any LEO or computer history functions after your retirement?  
I retired in 1992.  Carried out some part time consultancy and then in 1996 fully retired and relocated to Nailsea near Bristol.  I continued for several years on the BCS Membership Committee and also represented the BCS on the Continuous Professional Development Committee of the Engineering Council.  I have been a regular attendee at the LEO reunions from the start and have copies of I think all relevant books on Leo
* Finally: Reflect on your life experience with LEO.  What remains with you of that experience? 
I joined LEO at a formative time in my career and the original training has served me very well.

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