ZX-Blue Plaques?

[PeteProdge]

Shortly before lockdown (yes, hi, everyone, I'm back from doing the charity thing and just about ready to plunge back into retrogaming - bear with me!), I had a stand-up gig in Telford, Shropshire. Takes me a while to get there, so I had the afternoon off and I have been planning a video feature on the three main Spectrum magazines, so I thought I'd record all my links outside Crash's former HQ in King Street, Ludlow.

In Crash's heyday, the ground floor was a branch of Victoria Wine, a chain of liquor shops that went under about a decade ago. Nowadays it's some health food and vitamins store called The Grape Tree, as you may have seen earlier in this thread. I popped in for a snack on my drive over to Telford (and that was quite a way away).

I've been in 14 Rathbone Place for a job interview, for what it became after Dennis Publishing vacated it - the HQ of Nickelodeon UK/Paramount Channel. All their admin and television studios were crammed into that small multi-storey place, and by spooky coincidence, the chap interviewing me was Eddie McKendrick - the former publisher of Crash, who told me he had been one of the many Lloyd Mangrams. (Also going for the same job was Paul Rose/Mr Biffo of Digitiser fame - he told me of the tiny salary on offer, glad I didn't it!)

Despite SU being in north London, I've never been anywhere near their former HQ, not even when in my clubbing days down at Fabric, which isn't far away.

I popped over to the Baron Of Beef after visiting Cambridge Centre For Computing History at the Spectrum's 35th anniversary...


I occasionally have to travel through Kempston on the way to work. Not that I've done that lately (mostly WFH), but could manage a photo of the Kempston joystick place this week. (Ironically, a company that used to make peripherals for the Spectrum and many other 8-bit and 16-bit computers back in the day, is one of our clients, and it's nothing to do with Kempston.)

I sometimes run round the Finedon Road Industrial Estate in Wellingborough, and my usual 5K route takes me round one of the many UK bases Activision had - Units 3 & 4, Lloyd Close - in the 8-bit era. However, I don't think it was a hub for programming, more like admin. The skip outside it used to have many returned cassettes, regularly raided by kids from the nearby council estate. You'd see a lot of children with Hacker badges.

At some point in the 1990s, Sir Clive Sinclair was selling small kit radios using an address in Wellingborough at the Denington Industrial Estate. Can't think where now, but, wow, that's a come down. Everything there is grotty, circa 1960s.

[5MinuteRetro]

Then and now:

Oh man - I so want to visit the Style Bar next door!

[PeteProdge]

I forgotten about my promise to head off to Kempston this morning. When I finished work, my manager handed me the April 1986 edition of ZX Computing, something he had found while tidying up his house and he knew was into the Speccy. This reminded me to pop over to Kempston, and sure enough, a full page advert in the inside front cover showed the address - 1-3 Singer Way.

It's now occupied by a company called Parrott Construction...

https://twitter.com/ReheatedPixels/stat ... 0508427268

Incidentally, that edition of ZX Computing is VERY Kempston heavy, as they review the Kempston and AMX mouse devices that had come out, both retailing for £69.95, as well as profiling them as a news piece in their own right.

[Mpk]

Blue Plaques? Pff. I'll bet that Chris Sievey is the only Spectrum game programmer to have an actual statue in his honour.

[R-Tape]

Blue Plaques? Pff. I'll bet that Chris Sievey is the only Spectrum game programmer to have an actual statue in his honour.

Closely connected to the Speccy enough for me. I've added it to the original list. This is turning into quite a road trip.

[p13z]

Noticed that US Gold isn't on the list ( Unit 2, Holford Way, Holford Park, Birmingham ).
I used to work at a site on the same estate, which has expanded since, but all the original units / buildings are still in place.
Last time I looked they appeared to be empty and getting a re-fit.

[R-Tape]

Noticed that US Gold isn't on the list ( Unit 2, Holford Way, Holford Park, Birmingham ).

Added. There's nothing like wandering around a quiet and unfamiliar industrial estate to make you feel uneasy is there? Even more if you tell a security guard you're a tourist.

[R-Tape]

Another Irish blue plaque. New Concepts Ltd. Thanks @Daveysloan

It looks perfect for the itinerant spechum, who can marvel at the Estate Agent at #37 and stay at the boutique hotel next door.

[Kweepa]

How about Probe Software, 155 Mitcham Road, London SW17? https://archive.org/details/ComputerAnd ... ew=theater

Also Imagine House 5 Sir Thomas Street Liverpool Merseyside L1 6BW

[Kweepa]

Psion Software
2 Huntsworth Mews Gloucester Place London NW1 6DD
https://archive.org/details/NH2021_Popu ... 1/mode/2up

[Vampyre]

74 King Street, Dudley is where Gargoyle Games and later FTL produced their stuff.

Second floor IIRC. Went there once during school lunchtime (which was down the road) and Follis & Carter gave us a load of free posters.

[p13z]

Durell Software are still operating from the same address in Taunton that appeared on their Speccy cassette inlays.
They (he?) currently seem to do software for estate agents.

Walking past the other day I noticed they have finally left the building
End of an era. All Durell Software signs removed.
It now appears to be a private cosmetic dental practice.

[Lee P]

It's the door just to the left of this kebab shop. Perfect spot for a blue plaque.

I didn't know that was their original address (I know the area very well as it's my hometown - can confirm there is, and was, bog all to do)

Going by old adverts, the Bedford Road address was still being advertised in September 83, but by December 83 they'd moved to Singer Way as shown in Pete's tweet. That industrial estate was built in 83 and 84 so they would've been the very first tenants.

I'm just annoyed I was in Manchester a couple of months ago, probably two minutes from Central Street at one point, and failed to make the pilgrimage. And prior to that, in Cambridge last year I saw the Baron of Beef and wondered why I knew the name.

[R-Tape]

I didn't know that was their original address (I know the area very well as it's my hometown - can confirm there is, and was, bog all to do)

This is your moment to put your home town on the map Lee - buy up the property and set up THE KEMPSTON EXPERIENCE. Glass cabinets as far as the eye can see of Joysticks, with a 'hunt the Centrionics Interface E' for the kiddies.

[Lee P]

Nice idea Dave, but that would involve moving 100 miles back up north to Kempston. (I'm in Kent, most of you are up north from where I'm sitting)

I know this is of no interest to anyone except me and maybe @PeteProdge, but I've been digging around some more about Kempston Micro Electronics.

The very first ad I can find for them is from August 1982, when the address was 60 Adamson Court, Hillgrounds Road, Kempston. That's just a residential address, almost certainly a flat in what locals call the "Banana Block". If you stuck a blue plaque anywhere round there it'd be sold for scrap within five minutes.

By the time of January 1983's Sinclair User the address had changed to 180A Bedford Road, probably an office above one of the takeaways. (There were takeaways there in the 80s too, I remember a kebab/chip shop that I never went in, because it was further away than the best chip shop in town)

Then from winter 1983 onwards the address changes again to 30 Singer Way, a brand new industrial estate ten minutes away. This now seems to be a greasy spoon cafe serving the estate. BARMY BURGER'S anyone?

This lasts until mid-1984, when they start publishing the address as just "Singer Way", but with the same postcode, MK42 7AF. But spot the difference between these two SU ads.

March 1985


April 1985


Same address, same phone number, but different postcode, MK42 7AW. That's on the other side of Singer Way, opposite unit 30.

And later on, in ads from early 1986 (including the one Pete saw in ZX Computing), you can see the full address, 1-3 Singer Way MK42 7AW. This is the place Pete photographed for his tweet. But look at the address...


Kempston Micro Sales, not Kempston Micro Electronics. I don't know if they moved offices in Spring 85 or just had two units and stuck the sales department in a different building.

And in a further plot twist, there's a YS ad in June 1986 which gives the address for Kempston Micro Sales as three or four miles away on 4 Manton Lane, Bedford MK41 7HY, with a new phone number. 4 Manton Lane is a house, and the postcode doesn't match, but it's most likely Unit 4 Manton Lane Industrial Estate, MK41 7PB, now occupied by an electrical company.

Then there's silence for over a year before a mention in Crash November 1987, which doesn't give an address, just "Kempston Data" and a Milton Keynes phone number - again I'm assuming a lot here but Kempston Data may have been a new company set up after the original one went bust. I found the full address in a mid-1988 YS: 22 Linford Forum, Rockingham Drive, Milton Keynes MK14 6LY - another industrial estate.

Anyone fancy a pilgrimage? It would kill an hour or so before heading to Cambridge where there's actually stuff to do.

[PeteProdge]

Anyone fancy a pilgrimage? It would kill an hour or so before heading to Cambridge where there's actually stuff to do.

Heh, my employment for a Bedford-based IT company came to an end around this time last year. I had a lovely time working for them, for around five years but the grim reaper of redundancy came a knocking. In that tweet, I'm holding a copy of ZX Computing (a magazine I never saw or read at the time of being a Speccy user) that was given to me by my line manager who was also a Speccy user and was clearing out his attic. Kempston was on my drive home, so it was dead easy to take that photo!

I now WFH in my day job, although I venture into Milton Keynes once a week for a side hustle. (Bedford's just a 40-min drive away, dead easy to get to and I have family there too.)

By the way, on the subject of postcode changes - these sometimes change for an address. You can have a postcode for years, and then suddenly, the Royal Mail will change it to something else. It's quite rare though, they do everything they can to avoid it. Source? Ah, being a data entry clerk for many years in the 1990s.

[Lee P]

By the way, on the subject of postcode changes - these sometimes change for an address. You can have a postcode for years, and then suddenly, the Royal Mail will change it to something else. It's quite rare though, they do everything they can to avoid it. Source? Ah, being a data entry clerk for many years in the 1990s.

Yes, I even looked at the incorrect Manton Lane postcode on Doogal to see if it had been changed, but it's been assigned to Curlew Crescent (about half a mile away) since records of such things began in 1980. My guess is an employee lived there (or knew someone who did) and gave out the wrong postcode.