Mary O’Donnell is an administrator in our Limerick office in Ireland. Mary joined us 38 years ago and she remembers when handheld calculators were in their infancy.

“In 1972, our Limerick office won its first design/project management contract from the multi-national pharmaceutical firm, Wyeth International. Since that date, we have continuously provided professional services to the company both in Ireland and the UK,” said Mary.

“It is interesting to note that in 1972 hand-held calculators were in their infancy and the use of CAD/draughting almost unheard of. Typewriters were manual, or basic electric. Typists had to be very accurate and use carbon paper between letter heading page and copy page. Tippex was commonly used and a typists best friend. Specifications had to be typed for each separate project. The first basic photocopiers made life a lot easier. Telex machines allowed you type a message directly to another telex machine.

“Draughtsmen used drawing boards and prepared the drawings in pencil and then used pens. People used telephones more frequently to discuss business, but could only do so by landline when in the office. One of the first mobile phones I saw was when a contractor came into the office with his ‘mobile’ phone in a box the size of a suitcase, and he was so proud of it.

“Our first computer was a Sirius. Wordstar was the word processing package. We saved data on five and a quarter inch disks and later on 3½ disks. Documents /drawings were all sent by post, hand delivered or collected depending on urgency.

“Business accounts were kept through journals and ledgers. Calculations for salaries were carried out manually on tax cards produced by the Revenue. Engineers and draughtsmen didn’t type, they either used a dictaphone or wrote in long hand and all typing was done by admin.

“All senior staff were addressed as Mr. or Ms., and all calls from clients /colleagues were addressed as Mr. or Ms. Offices closed from 1pm to 2pm and almost everyone went out to lunch. Lunch time meetings (even casual ones) often led to new project intake, as did making contact with clients through golf outings,” added Mary.

Simon Titterington joined us back in 1985 and he remembers the days when the CAD computers were installed. Simon is now a CAD manager for our engineering team based in our Leeds office.

“We were then called White Young Prentice Royle and had a very stylish logo of lower case wy in gold on a black background,” said Simon.

“The office was split into bays, each of which had a continuous work bench on three sides, with the drawing boards bolted to them and a 100mm heating pipe below each that was great for thawing cold feet out in winter. Lots of desk space, four drawers each and a partition mounted book shelf. Project folders were kept on desks.

“We also had the classic tea ladies that used to bring tea to your desk.

“There was a print room with an ammonia fuelled dyeline drawing copier, run by Hazel. It used light sensitive yellow paper that was kept in black plastic bags to stop it going off.

“Being pre health and safety I had the job of changing lamps in the office lights – usually by climbing on the desks. I also had to change fuses when they blew. Climbing up the outside of the top section of a 20 floor office block in London to get on the roof to do a survey in wind and rain with no roof parapet or safety lines and slithering along to the very edge to hold the tape and looking down on Pall Mall.

“All drawings were produced by hand in ink on either tracing paper or Velograph (plastic) by draughtsmen and tracers – not by computer.

“When CAD first started around 1987 we got two original IBM AT PC’s with 640k ram 20Mb hard drives and running at about 6.88mhz. They came with a graphics only monitor that was around 19” square and weighed the same as a baby elephant, and a 12” monochrome text screen where commands were typed.

Simon concluded, “My first design project was Headingley bus garage – lighting to the new office block and security lighting of the outside bus park. It was located up the road behind Bryan's chippy, until they knocked it down and put up flats instead.”

Steve Pollington is an associate director for our engineering team based in our Cumbria office. He joined us over 20 years ago and, although looking fondly on the good old days, he can’t deny the improvements in professionalism.

“I joined White Young (as we were then) to run our embryonic Cumbria office, all 2.5 of us. The firm was a very friendly affair with only 300 employees,” said Steve.

“Everyone seemed to know everyone, from teaboy to MD. WY’s 30th anniversary was celebrated with dinner on the North York Moors railway.

“At first, we had only one client, BNFL, and I can remember one particularly worrying occasion when our forward workload had dropped to 7.5 hours. In those days “business development” was very much an uphill struggle in what was a very parochial area. At that time the office was surrounded by a field full of sheep which gave rise to some strange phone conversations when the window was open.

“Although the Cumbria office was the first to trial QA and to receive BS5750 accreditation, there was far less paperwork then and more time to get on with the engineering.

“The arrival of our first CAD machine (a 386!) was greeted with trepidation. Little did we know then that only 16 years later the drawing board would become a museum piece.

“Although in many ways I miss the simplicity of the “old days” there is no denying the vast improvement in professionalism that has occurred over the passing years,” he said.