Memories from a Local Lad

Hi Mike nice to see you on here its a great site. Must correct your memory, the Doodle bug fell in Rushen Walk right behind our house not Titchfield Walk.I am also in the photo right in front of Don Jeffery on the left of Jim Bestly, also Ted Aslett is 3 along from you on the right as you look at the photo. You were right about Alec Briers he went on to be a verger at Southwark Cathedral, sadly Alec is now deceased.

Hello Ted, You are quite right, Rushen Walk and not Titchfield Walk. My little grey cells are not what they used to be. It was of course in Titchfield Walk that Colin Curling lived. Another member of 14th Morden Scouts. John Hill passed away in 2010 (extreme bottom left in photo)

I understand Frank Venner's father invented the time switch. Frank Venner was my father-in-law. Can anyone give me details about the inventor? Frank Venner settled in NSW Australia and had 2 children who still reside in Australia.

Frank Venner probably was the start of Venner Time Switches on the Kingston-by-Pass. A Mr Tauchart was the managing director throughout WW11 and into the 60s until it was sold to the American Group AMF. Venner expanded into Parking meters, Scientific instuments, Andre-Yardley batteries and Electronincs, the latter being moved to Bristol and later much of all other production moved there as well. Venners sadly did not seem to keep up with technology and so shrunk to a very small unit. There may well be a small Venner company near Southampton. (I will watch this space)

Venner Time Switches in the 40s and 50s employed a large work force many from St Helier (Carshalton/Morden) estate. One lady was Dolly Cockell sister or sister in law of Don Cockell (he was a great boxer) from Wrythe Lane. The 157 morning bus usually carried quite a number of us all on the way to Morden and thence the 32 bus onto the Kingston-by-pass stopping outside Venners.

I believe this Frank Venner is my husband's grandfather. Is it the same Frank Venner that worked on the Marlo to Cape Conran Road?

Hi Mike nice to know you are still around. My friend Eric Reynolds, first Job was at Venners time switches, I always remember him telling me how they rigged up double decker bus then tried to tip it over, he said it reached 45 degrees before it was ready to go so very stable, he also worked on the first parking meters fitting them in London. such a shame that those industries all seem to have disappeared, now we seem to get everything from abroad.

The article 'Memories of a local lad' is but a brief and short item, however after seeing out the war years in Waltham Road, my memories were sufficient to write a book. A book that I did put together 'How Times Have Changed' and a brief digest of this was sent to a few contacts I managed to find. One of those was Ted Blowers in Canada. He did receive it by e-mail and commented that there was little information on the V1 episodes. Of course to reduce a small book to a 3 or 4 pages leaves a lot out. Never-the-less the war years did produce in latter years an abundance of successful people:John Hamp, Peter Malloy, Ken Bestley and Colin Curling to name but a few.

Great photo of my Dad, Len Briers and my Uncle Alec. Sadly Len Briers passed away in June 1988 and Alec passed away December 2009. Their siblings were Bill (William), Fred, May and Joyce. Sadly all have passed away and I still have relatives living on the estate.

Very sad to read Alison Briers information, as I well remember Freddie, Alec and Len Briers. One great memory was during the war when they and Ken & Jim Bestley all gathered in my back garden on a summers day, we were all making model aircraft (some better than others) Freddie stuck a knife in his upper leg whilst carving a piece of wood. My Dad carried him on his shoulders to the doctors. Happy days Great memories of lost friends..

Hello Michael, Well I came across this site by chance, very interesting, I worked for Venners in the office 1965 my first job and really enjoyed being there. I had one of those little parking timers.  Although at the age of 16 then I didn't have a car....but my then boyfriend did, he worked in the factory part Mick Hodges, he was a setter.  i'm now 64.  Regards Jill 

I worked for Venner Electronics in the lab for 3 years until the coming of North Sea gas in 1971. Around the middle of that time I worked upstairs in the "specials" department. My best memory is designing an interface for Seismograph Services Ltd. between a computer tape reader and an x-y pen plotter. They were well able to do this themselves, but they needed a stand-alone system to free up computer time. AMF decided after careful costing that the "specials" were losing money so they finished, but it was an exciting time none the less. I believe those buildings no longer exist.

The Venner group of companies were certainly a large employer, there are many that I can remember from St Helier and around who worked there for many years. The main electronic production section started to move to Bristol in 1964. Through three location moves in Bristol, each move being to bigger premises, the last being used for the main company production of time switches and the Park-o-Meter section. Alas they did not keep up with technology and first the Electronic section shrunk and then the Time switch section shrank. It was in the mid 1970's that the Venner group (AMF) ceased trading in Bristol. I believe some remnants of Venner moved to Southampton?. Maybe we shall hear further on this ? The original Venner buildings were demolished to develop the new A3 road network at Shannon's corner.