John Tomlinson  Died 2012,  LEO Operator, 1962 LEO II/1, 1966 LEO III/1

Worked on LEO III as a programmer on Postmaster Accounting System – 1970/71 – and later for ICL on Post Office System 4 computers.  After leaving Post Office joined ICL Dataskill. Then various jobs with Corning, Thorn/EMI and Electolux where he became IT Manager. Subsequently became responsible for Information Security first for Northumbria Police and then Leicester.

From Simon Tomlinson: My Dad was John Tomlinson who worked for LEO during the 60s. I was a very small boy. We lived in Marlow and Dad used to commute to London to LEO. 

I can't tell you much, as I was so small, but I do remember one funny story. Apparently,  one night shift worker had an air bed so that he could have a bit of a kip after a pub visit earlier on in the shift. Everyone would work extra hard to cover their colleagues `free time but, one night everyone came running out of the store room gasping after the offending worker had let the stale air out of his air bed after it had been inflated several days earlier after a few pints and a couple of ciggies!

Dad ended up running the computer department for Leicester City Council and we moved up here in 1972. It was regretted by Dad in hindsight, but that is all in the past.

From Bob Stevenson: I knew your father well. We both worked as operators/shift leaders on the LEO III/1 computer, at Hartree House in Queensway and often went for meals together in Queensway or Westbourne Park, where there was a great choice of restaurants. When I was Chief Op. I was asked to nominate someone to go to a Moscow computer show and help demonstrate a LEO III computer. Naturally I proposed John, who had all the necessary skills and was probably a bit more presentable than some of the other ops! I also remember that John took home one of the large punched card machines that were being scrapped and set it up in his garage, presumably hoping to have a profitable home business. I don’t know how it went but he didn’t give up his day job.