Humble Pye

[David Brent]

Surprised to see a recent campaign here in Australia promoting Pye electrical products, such as LCD screens and DVD players.

Pye of course have been famous for selling televisions, stereos, records ect.. for many years in the UK. Their logo was seen everywhere. I had thought, over here at least, that Pye were now dead and buried but latest advertising proves otherwise. The old logo has been replaced by a more modern one. Are they still a British company?

In the early seventies I used to work in an electrical store and can remember when colour television started here in 1974. Brands like Pye, Healing, Rank, AWA, Philips, Kreisler were at the forefront of television sales. Although Pye and Healing were then known for being very unreliable and lacking quality.



Reminds me of a customer we had back then who bought one of the very first video cassette players in Australia. It was a Nordmende machine imported from Germany and cost a fortune by todays standards.

It was so big and bulky that it had to be carried by two men. I can still recall the excitement it made in store when it arrived.



Dave.

[samkydd]

Just like the British motorcycle industry, companies like Pye who were pioneers of radio technology, ignored then threat from post war Japan and became complacent. Consequently they were soon left behind and when I were a lad in the 1970s we bought Philips, Telefunken. ITT and Grundig audio products because companies like Pye were always perceived to be behind the times and of poor quality.



The telly to have in the early 70s was a white Murphy on a chrome swivel stand! Needless to say we had a bloody old Ferranti black and white set in teak effect casing and mechanical push buttons to change channels. Everytime you pushed a channel button in with a clunk, one of the others would fly out across the room and knock something off the plastic wall mounted knick-knack shelf!



My parents' first colour set was from Comet in 1974, £247. a big white thing on a stand made by someone called Autovox. It lasted 10 years before the colour eventually went.

[samkydd]

There are some good looking sets there. The ones that are encased in a cabinet look wierd and I suppose some people were ashamed of having a set on view in the home back than, in case they were looked upon as being "common"! I remember in the 70s even, if visitors called we had to either switch the telly off or at least make sure it was on BBC1!

[mysteriesofedgarwallace]

Many years ago, Pye were a quality British manufacturer; then along came Philips................

They did pioneering radar work during the war.

[David Brent]

Talking of old televisions, I remember back in the glorious sixties my family used to hire a black & white tele from the company British Relay. They were a big company at the time, particularly in and around Birmingham.

Not many people owned their own set, it was cheaper to hire.

At one time we started to experience a strange "bad eggs" type of smell in our living room. Everyone in the family looked at each other suspiciously and eventually we blamed the cat. This went on for three days. we then worked out that the smell only really started after we had switched the television on every evening.

We called in the repair guy from the Relay who after opening the back of the tele and making a brief inspection asked "Have you been experiencing any bad smells?". Sheepishly we answered "Yes".

"Well it's your valves." he told us.

We thought at first he had said "Your bowels".

It transpired that the valves on the set needed replacing and that they had been giving off the bad odour.

We later appologised to the cat.



Dave.

[Steve Crook]

Racal (originally Decca Radar before they became Decca-Racal) were the main commercial pioneers in the UK. But the very early sets used equipment built by Pye & Philips radio engineers.



Steve (who worked for Decca Radar for a while)

[Fellwanderer]

Whatever happened to Ecko?



I may be misremembering it but I'm sure there was a factory in Southend through into the sixties - somewhere near the airport. I also have a feeling there was a Phillips involvement



FELL

[Fellwanderer]

I seem to be dragging up from the clutter somewhere in my head that the factory was on the north side of Priory Park - one of those art decor style 1930s brick factories.



FELL

[Steve Crook]

Decca Navigator, Decca Radar & Decca Records were always separate offshoots of the same parent company.



Steve

[smudge]

(Steve Crook @ Jan 9 2006, 08:59 PM)

Decca Navigator, Decca Radar & Decca Records were always separate offshoots of the same parent company.



Steve

I remember as a kid, driving past an old DECCA factory and always being in awe of the facade. Having seen the name on so many 45s, I was sure something terribly glamoursus went on in there.



I seem to recall finding out many years later that it was as glamourous as making turntables, or turntable components.

The factory still stands but is now occupied by the people who make roadsigns...



SMUDGE

[smudge]

For many moons there was an old TV shop visible from the train (can't recall if it was Balham or Clapham) which still had it's old neons right at the top of the building, for BUY EKCOVISION ; the neon wasn't the only thing that glowed warm as you trundled past....



SMUDGE

[David Brent]

Of course it was Decca Records (amongst others) who famously turned down The Beatles.

They did bounce back with The Rolling Stones.

Pye had The Kinks.

They also had Benny Hill. Anyone remember his hit single " Bamba 3688"?



Dave.

[foha80]

(David Brent @ Jan 11 2006, 03:20 AM)

Of course it was Decca Records (amongst others) who famously turned down The Beatles

To be fair to Decca ,everyone had turned them down,they at least gave them an audition.I have heard

that the audition tapes were not anything special.I believe that you can hear some of the audition on the anthology series





Terry

[arty-dave]

That's right, Terry - it needed George Martin to hear the potentiial...

[arty-dave]

double groan!!

[samkydd]

(David Brent @ Jan 11 2006, 03:20 AM)

Of course it was Decca Records (amongst others) who famously turned down The Beatles.

They did bounce back with The Rolling Stones.

Pye had The Kinks.

They also had Benny Hill. Anyone remember his hit single " Bamba 3688"?



Dave.

I remember buying "Ernie (Who Drove The Fastest Milk Cart in the West)" with my school dinner money! Shame really, we had cottage pie and queen's pudding on the menu that week! Uncanny but have you spotted any resemblance between my young Sandy Powell avatar and a certain Benny Hill character?

[smudge]

(samkydd @ Jan 12 2006, 06:36 PM)

I remember buying "Ernie (Who Drove The Fastest Milk Cart in the West)" with my school dinner money! Shame really, we had cottage pie and queen's pudding on the menu that week! Uncanny but have you spotted any resemblance between my young Sandy Powell avatar and a certain Benny Hill character?

What's the Sandy Powell picture from ?



Do you reckon old Scuttle was a 'lift' then, like Les Dawson borrowed Cissie and Ada from George Evans' 'gossip over the fence' character? I don't know if she ever had a name, but I've seen GE doing her on TV, and if Les's was an homage, it was spot on !



SMUDGE

[Hugo]

Do you reckon old Scuttle was a 'lift' then, like Les Dawson borrowed Cissie and Ada from George Evans' 'gossip over the fence' character? I don't know if she ever had a name, but I've seen GE doing her on TV, and if Les's was an homage, it was spot on !

I hate to be pedantic but it was NORMAN Evans who invented the gossipy housewife in his "over the garden wall" sketch.

The character did have a name - Fanny Fairbottom.

[smudge]

(Hugo @ Jan 13 2006, hate to be pedantic but it was NORMAN Evans who invented the gossipy housewife in his "over the garden wall" sketch.

The character did have a name - Fanny Fairbottom.

So it was Hugo. Ageing brain cells mate !



Thanks for giving her a name for me...



SMUDGE

[Tony Pendrey]

(Fellwanderer @ Jan 9 2006, 07:03 PM)

Whatever happened to Ecko?



I may be misremembering it but I'm sure there was a factory in Southend through into the sixties - somewhere near the airport. I also have a feeling there was a Phillips involvement



FELL

No you are right Mr. Fell. The main Ecko factory was opposite Priory Park and they had another place on the A127 arterial road.



The name lives on. They are part of National Plastics, and NP Ecko still operate on the same site.



They recently had a big exhibition of Ecko memorabilia in the local museum. Sadly I was too busy doing the washing up.