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The Secret Life of the National Grid
Oct. 27th, 2010 04:31 pmI worked thirty years in the electricity supply industry, but this wasn't because of some deep-seated desire to help provide electricity to the general population. They were willing to pay me for a job I thought I might be able to do. However, I couldn't work that long without picking up some interest in the subject.
A few months ago, my pension magazine mentioned that the BBC were planning a history of the National Grid and were calling for people who had memories of the early days. I didn't join the CEGB till 1973 so I don't think I had anything to contribute. But as the programme was to be made by the same team who did The Secret Life of the Motorway and The Secret Life of the Airport, I was certainly interested in seeing the finished programme, the first episode of which was shown last night.
I hadn't realised how little I knew about the early days. I knew nothing of the act introduced into parliament in 1926 by Stanley Baldwin which set up the Central Electricity Board to run the grid and started the construction of the lines to carry electricity around the country. However, I had heard stories about grid control during the Second World War, which I thought the programme skated over. As I recall, the national control centre was moved to deep inside St. Paul's underground station, and control carried on throughout the bombing. Which maybe why after the war, the headquarters for the new Central Electricity Generating Board were build right next to the underground station. (The building was knocked down during the Paternoster redevelopment a few years ago, but is visible in some episodes of the TV series UFO.)
Throughout the programme, the voiceover (Philip Glenister, aka Gene Hunt) talked about pylons. I was taught never to call them that. They are towers. I noticed in one newsreel clip they had, there was a sign listing how many towers had been built, and the tower worker who was interviewed talked about towers throughout, until right at the end, when he said pylon.
One of my final jobs at the National Grid Company involved maintaining computer programmes that were used by the demand prediction team and I recognised some of the people they interviewed as people I'd worked with. They went into TV pickups in more detail than is usual in the media. Usually, the sudden rise in demand at the end of a popular TV programme is attributed to people getting up and switching on their kettles to make a cup of tea. But, as they mentioned, another important factor is that people go to the loo, and flushing the toilet causes the elelctric pumps to be activated at the sewage works to deal with the sudden arrival.
At the place I worked for the last two years of my career, there was a display in reception for showing off to visitors. One of the things displayed was the current total demand. I remember one winter's evening when apparently the demand prediction team had predicted that there was going to be a record demand at about five o'clock. As I went through reception on my way home, the whole team had trooped out into reception to see the numbers clock up.
I was slightly taken aback that the grid control engineers were bringing on line pumped storage from Scotland. When I worked for the grid, the grid was responsible for just England and Wales. Scotland was a separate system. I wonder if that's changed.
I was also surprised to see the national control room labelled as a "secret location". The building I worked in for those final two years housed the national control room and nobody told me that was secret. Indeed, any visitor to the building would find it hard not to know it was there, as the room has a glass side wall looking onto the central atrium of the building in which people sit drinking coffee, having meetings etc. It's just about impossible to go anywhere in the building without seeing the control room.
But I recall there was a secret back-up control room whose exact location I don't know. But I did hear the story of the National Grid manager turning up at a railway station, getting into a taxi and asking to be taken to the National Grid office. "Is that main one or the secret one?" he was asked.
And, although the building had the National Control logo on the gate, they didn't go out of the way to make the place known to the public. For a start, it was on a minor road without a bus route. It was a two mile walk to the main station. This led to one incident when I was walking back to the station one night. I had to go past a football field and one one occasion there was a group of lads playing a game there. I was wearing a suit and carrying a briefcase, and there was only one place it was likely I was walking from. They shouted the name of the building at me, followed by, "What do you really do there? We know it's nothing to do with electricity." All I can surmise is that the security and the out of the way location had led them to think that the National Grid was a front for some secret organisation such as MI5.
A few months ago, my pension magazine mentioned that the BBC were planning a history of the National Grid and were calling for people who had memories of the early days. I didn't join the CEGB till 1973 so I don't think I had anything to contribute. But as the programme was to be made by the same team who did The Secret Life of the Motorway and The Secret Life of the Airport, I was certainly interested in seeing the finished programme, the first episode of which was shown last night.
I hadn't realised how little I knew about the early days. I knew nothing of the act introduced into parliament in 1926 by Stanley Baldwin which set up the Central Electricity Board to run the grid and started the construction of the lines to carry electricity around the country. However, I had heard stories about grid control during the Second World War, which I thought the programme skated over. As I recall, the national control centre was moved to deep inside St. Paul's underground station, and control carried on throughout the bombing. Which maybe why after the war, the headquarters for the new Central Electricity Generating Board were build right next to the underground station. (The building was knocked down during the Paternoster redevelopment a few years ago, but is visible in some episodes of the TV series UFO.)
Throughout the programme, the voiceover (Philip Glenister, aka Gene Hunt) talked about pylons. I was taught never to call them that. They are towers. I noticed in one newsreel clip they had, there was a sign listing how many towers had been built, and the tower worker who was interviewed talked about towers throughout, until right at the end, when he said pylon.
One of my final jobs at the National Grid Company involved maintaining computer programmes that were used by the demand prediction team and I recognised some of the people they interviewed as people I'd worked with. They went into TV pickups in more detail than is usual in the media. Usually, the sudden rise in demand at the end of a popular TV programme is attributed to people getting up and switching on their kettles to make a cup of tea. But, as they mentioned, another important factor is that people go to the loo, and flushing the toilet causes the elelctric pumps to be activated at the sewage works to deal with the sudden arrival.
At the place I worked for the last two years of my career, there was a display in reception for showing off to visitors. One of the things displayed was the current total demand. I remember one winter's evening when apparently the demand prediction team had predicted that there was going to be a record demand at about five o'clock. As I went through reception on my way home, the whole team had trooped out into reception to see the numbers clock up.
I was slightly taken aback that the grid control engineers were bringing on line pumped storage from Scotland. When I worked for the grid, the grid was responsible for just England and Wales. Scotland was a separate system. I wonder if that's changed.
I was also surprised to see the national control room labelled as a "secret location". The building I worked in for those final two years housed the national control room and nobody told me that was secret. Indeed, any visitor to the building would find it hard not to know it was there, as the room has a glass side wall looking onto the central atrium of the building in which people sit drinking coffee, having meetings etc. It's just about impossible to go anywhere in the building without seeing the control room.
But I recall there was a secret back-up control room whose exact location I don't know. But I did hear the story of the National Grid manager turning up at a railway station, getting into a taxi and asking to be taken to the National Grid office. "Is that main one or the secret one?" he was asked.
And, although the building had the National Control logo on the gate, they didn't go out of the way to make the place known to the public. For a start, it was on a minor road without a bus route. It was a two mile walk to the main station. This led to one incident when I was walking back to the station one night. I had to go past a football field and one one occasion there was a group of lads playing a game there. I was wearing a suit and carrying a briefcase, and there was only one place it was likely I was walking from. They shouted the name of the building at me, followed by, "What do you really do there? We know it's nothing to do with electricity." All I can surmise is that the security and the out of the way location had led them to think that the National Grid was a front for some secret organisation such as MI5.
