Edna Traill (nee Owen)

Maurice Thorogood  00:07
Who you are, the fact that you were Edna Owen, and that you then became Edna Owen formerly, and and your job title at ITN,

Edna Owen  00:22
my job at ITN, yeah, and your

Maurice Thorogood  00:25
focus is into that lens, please. Okay, in your own time,

Edna Owen  00:30
do you want to know? Wait a minute. Do you want to know how I got to ITN, not at

Maurice Thorogood  00:34
this point. Okay, this is just so that I can take a information from it and make a strap underneath. Okay, give your name. Okay.

Edna Owen  00:44
I ha d originally worked with Tommy trail for eight years at the BBC during the war. We each went to other companies, and later, I worked for five years with the British Empire society for the blind. One day, Tommy rang me and said, Did I want a new job? And I said, what sort of job? And he said, my administrative assistant in Independent Television News. And I said, What was the salary? He told me. I said, When do I start? As soon as possible. He went. He joined them on the first of February, 1955 I joined them on the first of March 1955 we subsequently went on the air originally at nine o'clock on Thursday the 22nd of September, 1955

Maurice Thorogood  01:55
Thank you. Right. So now tell us the story from the beginning, from that that first phone call that you got right through to that first night. Ah,

Edna Owen  02:04
dear, Let me think. Do you want? Are you taking me now? Yes, I am. Oh, but you can cut me out case, right? Do you want the name of the people that

Maurice Thorogood  02:16
were there? If you can remember them.

Speaker 2  02:20
Aiden Crawley was then our chief editor, followed not a year later, by Geoffrey Cox, who was the night editor of the news Chronicle. Arthur Clifford was the head of the newsroom. Ray Perrin was in charge of the seventh floor of the Film Unit, where the editors were bringing the film in when they used to write the did you call it commentary? We had within a week of going on the air. I can remember so well we were only really laced up on the 22nd of September, more or less putting bits of things together to plug in at nine o'clock because the transmission went out from the Guild Hall at nine o'clock at night, it was a great thrill. I should think one of the biggest thrills that anybody has ever had. It was plugged in, and away we went, and the bulletin came over. Now the newscaster in those days was Christopher Chataway. Before that, before we moved into TV house, we were in a building called Ingersoll house on the opposite side of the road, which was set up as what a studio we were all in one room together, and Aiden Crawley insisted upon having rehearsals complete, timed rehearsals with Christopher Chat away as the newscaster let me think, what else do you? Would you like to know at the end, after we were about 200 of us on the staff in those days, and after the end of the first week, Aidan Crawley sent him, sent for me. And he said, Edna, I want a party to Friday of next week for the whole of the staff. It will be the last time they will ever all be on duty together, because that weekend we go on shift duty. Of a 12 hour day, seven days a fortnight, in other words, two on two off, Three on two off, three, two on and three off. I remember so distinctly asking him how much I could spend on the set party, and he simply said, help yourself, which was wonderful. We cleared the newsroom where Arthur Clifford was the man in charge, cleared the newsroom and put a catering company in there with a bar on it. And it was very successful. Thank you. Edna, what more do you want? Thank you,

Speaker 3  05:45
right. Okay, so we've got that that's done. That's fine. So now see if you can tell us the story from the beginning, when you, when you first got that phone back, started with the phone rang and it was my old boss

Edna Owen  06:06
offering me a new job. Now, wait a minute. I don't think I can, because I was working with John Wilson in those days, and he was blind.

Maurice Thorogood  06:18
Can you remember? Can you remember the moment you first arrived at this company called ITN, and how you made it were how you started calling people from from the news reels. And

Edna Owen  06:31
we were all, we were all in at the at the right, at the beginning, right. Let me start

Maurice Thorogood  06:37
you there, right from the beginning, right. I'll give you a cue okay?

Edna Owen  06:42
Right at the beginning, when we were first in Ingersoll house, we were in, I think, two very large rooms, all everybody that was on the staff, working together. There were quite a few of us being the girls being trained to be studio assistants. Diana Edwards Jones was already there, and she picked up her studio assistants. I don't know how. I can't tell you, but after that, I think Tommy and I did the rest of the interviewing between us.

Maurice Thorogood  07:22
Okay, good, right? We've got that. That's fine. Can you go back to that moment when Tommy gave you the job? What I'm trying, what I'm trying to establish is that at ITN didn't, didn't exist. There was no ITN oh, until, until he

Edna Owen  07:41
called you and you got there. Wait a minute. Yes, I can do that. Okay,

Maurice Thorogood  07:45
right? So let me give you another cue, sweetheart.

Edna Owen  07:50
When Tommy rang me, he told me that he'd been interviewed by the man who was then head of the overseas division of the BBC. It because he was only the only chartered accountant in the country who'd had commercial television and radio experience for

Edna Owen  08:15
accountancy work, and that was the reason he was offered the job,

Edna Owen  08:25
trying to think, what else you need, and then he called you one day, he called me, yes, oh. He formed it. Wait a minute. He formed the company. He registered the company.

Maurice Thorogood  08:37
Can I just stop you darling? Can you just go back to Tommy Trail. Started the company. He registered the right so that we know it's Tommy Trail.

Maurice Thorogood  08:47
Okay, Tommy trail register, nice

Maurice Thorogood  08:51
and clean, okay? And

Edna Owen  08:53
Tommy registered the company trail, sweet Tommy trail register.

Maurice Thorogood  08:57
I'll give you another start. So sorry, sweetheart. Okay, so it's Tommy trail, but we want to hear that name, okay,

Edna Owen  09:04
Tommy Trail, after he was appointed on the first of February, registered the company as Independent Television News, limited, no Independent Television News, and it was formed because we were, there were going to be 13 companies round the British Isles, all giving Area programmes. Some one. We had Border. We had Yorkshire, we had Northern Ireland and so on. And it was quite impossible for them to supply a news bulletin owing to the cost. And ITN was set up as the major supplier of cost because at the in those days. Yes, it was costing something like, if I remember rightly, I think, 1000 pounds a day per bulletin. And the little companies around the British Isles couldn't cope with that in their in their money allocation.

Maurice Thorogood  10:20
Thank you, right. So, let me ask you this, when you joined ITN, how many were on the staff at that time? Yes,

Edna Owen  10:29
I thought you were going to ask me that and do now. I cannot remember. I should think there were 50 of us, possibly at that stage, they were very mixed. Aiden was already there. Chris Chataway was already there, and I cannot remember Morris, I'm sorry, who else? Where

Maurice Thorogood  10:54
did you get the staff from? Hmm,

Edna Owen  11:04
a lot of the cameramen came some came from the BBC, some came from Paramount. Some came from there were 13 outside cameramen at the beginning setting up camera crews. Some were sound. Some were silent, and each one had to have a sound recordist. They traveled the world in those days on and of course, we didn't have as many airplanes and arrangements to get abroad in very short space of time. They always flew. They were restricted under the union arrangement. The cameramen were entitled, in those days to first class travel.

Maurice Thorogood  11:56
When did you move into television house in Kingsway,

Edna Owen  12:03
before we went on the air, wait a minute, hold it.

Edna Owen  12:13
Well, we had to move into television house for Bill Sweeney to lay the connecting lines to the February March I would have thought about June.

Edna Owen  12:39
Okay, hello, darling. I can't take you at the moment. I'll come back later. I don't,

Maurice Thorogood  12:50
right. So this is very good, very, very good. I thought I'd taken the phones off the hook.

Edna Owen  12:55
I didn't

Maurice Thorogood  12:56
hear. I thought I took the phones off the hook. Obviously, I haven't that is that a separate phone? No, no. Wonder why they're coming through.

Edna Owen  13:06
It's attached in the kitchen. Yes, I've taken them off in the kitchen. Oh, yes, it's a new one being, being, it's tested. Yes, it's a new one that I go and have a new phone being put in.

Maurice Thorogood  13:22
Tell me about the day that, when the day arrived that you were going on air for the first time.

Edna Owen  13:34
The only word I can use for it is excitement. The excitement was absolutely amazing, as far as because in those days, we had a newsroom on the first floor, the studios were on the seventh floor.

Edna Owen  13:59
I'm just trying to think, who were the who the studio crew was in those days. I can't, I can't do that now, no, but we certainly had 13 camera crews, headed, of course, by John Cotter.

Maurice Thorogood  14:20
And let me take you back to that, that that day when you knew you were going on air for the

Edna Owen  14:24
first Well, we'd been working towards it, because the whole of commercial transmission went on air on that day from everywhere in the country. They went on and then they had to be plugged in to ITN to take the bulletin from The Guild. I think it was the Guild Hall at nine o'clock at night,

Maurice Thorogood  14:49
and was everybody on tenterhooks Remind me about this excitement, the excitement sounds at. Absolutely wonderful. It's like a first night in the theatre.

Edna Owen  15:06
I don't think I can Morris,

Maurice Thorogood  15:11
can you can you remember? Can you remember the feeling when you had actually completed that first 15 minute bulletin.

Edna Owen  15:27
I think it was relief that everything had gone smoothly, because the engineering work had been extremely well done for the plug to go in and the bulletin to go out. I suppose it was general excitement. But after it was over, after the bulletin was finished, we just all went home. Oh yes, because you see, it was right away from the studio. The Bulletin went out from the Guild Hall, and it was right away in the studio. We didn't send it out from our studio, and the Chris Chataway did the bulletin from, yes, interesting. 

Maurice Thorogood  16:16
 I mean, absolutelyfascinating. There must have been a time when you knew it was going to be a success and you needed more staff. Can you remember from from the day when it was said to you, this, ITN is going to be permanent, because it's

Edna Owen  16:38
been, well, let's put it this way, the staff went from the 200 that we were the night we went on the air, and it went in my day before I left, I should think We had got 800 or 1000 people on the staff, all sorts, all varieties,

Maurice Thorogood  17:08
good, good. Just see. Now, if I can take you that's all marvellous You say you can't quite recall that moment from that first phone call that you got. 

Edna Owen  17:24
No Ican't except that I remember I went to the man I worked with, whose name was Sir John Wilson, the blind man, and told him what had happened and said that I would be leaving whenever. I can't remember how much notice I had to give about two weeks or something? That was all in those days. What

Maurice Thorogood  17:46
did you do at the BBC Edna?

Edna Owen  17:50
at the BB,C Tommy at the BBC belonged to finance division, the head of which was a man called Thomas Lochhead, and Tommy was one of 13 Chartered Accountants on staff of the BBC, the majority, the majority of which was Scottish.

Maurice Thorogood  18:19
How did, how did Tommy get the job to start ITN

Edna Owen  18:24
you recall that I daren't quote this name,

Maurice Thorogood  18:29
because I just he must have got a call from

Edna Owen  18:32
somebody. Yes, he got a call. But I think it the man's name was Norman Collins, as far as what I remember, and he was, he had been the head of the overseas Division at the BBC, and that's how he knew Tommy, or whichever way round it was, because we during the war, you see, in the in finance division in the BBC, Tommy was programme accountant. We controlled the money of every programme that went out through the BBC over the air during the war, he was responsible for holding it. 

Maurice Thorogood  19:13
So of course, it made sense that when Tommy got the job at ITN, he needed an administrator to assist him, and

Maurice Thorogood  19:23
that was you, and that was me. And

Maurice Thorogood  19:25
did you think that it was going to be the exciting job that it turned out to be?

Edna Owen  19:33
Yes, I did. And the reason I did, I knew Tommy well enough to know that whatever he took on to do would be satisfying, interesting, and therefore it would be interesting to work with him, exciting and satisfying. 

Maurice Thorogood  19:53
Tell me about your job. What? What was your What did you have to do as a job? Maurice

Edna Owen  19:58
Morris, Maurice. Is I interviewed the majority of the female administrative staff, not the production staff. They were done by people like Jim Breedon and and Diana Edwards Jones, who ran the studios, but anything else, accounts, secretaries, whatever that was the job that I had to fill all those posts.

Maurice Thorogood  20:38
But I also remember when I was there with you, if a big story broke abroad, it would be you organizing the

Edna Owen  20:50
camera crew to go. So tell

Maurice Thorogood  20:53
me about that. Well

Edna Owen  20:56
before I went to ITN I had worked. I with a company called Metal Closures. The head of that company used to travel quite a lot, and we had a, I can't think what you call it is a booking agency for booking trips abroad. The man who was my I took that company when I went to it, and I took that company with me. The man, it was Collingwoods, and the man's name was,

Maurice Thorogood  21:47
it's deep in this

Edna Owen  21:50
but I was given George Johnson to look after everything we wanted, a telephone call. He then after, after a little while that it got very busy, and George was told to get an assistant, who was Mike, Michael Quinton, who, incidentally, was here only last week. We are still very friendly. And Mike learnt that if I ever rang up, no matter what part of the day it was, and said, pencil poised, that was his word for knowing that it was very urgent. I wanted three seats on the first plane, possibly to the other side of the world, plus 150 kilos of gear. I could tell you, they never failed. They never failed, never Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Maurice Thorogood  23:00
Right, so we've got just a moment.

Edna Owen  23:09
Best Collingwood was the name of the people. Okay, Jack Lane was the head of it. That's right. Jack lair,

Maurice Thorogood  23:16
right? That's fine, that's fine, that's fine, right?

Maurice Thorogood  23:21
I'm going to, I'm just going to take, I'm just going to stop that tape. Now I'm...............................................


Maurice Thorogood  00:14
Can you remember Edna, the biggest story that happened in your time, I

Edna Owen  00:29
No, I can't. It must have been a war somewhere, but I can't think where was Martin Gray went on

Maurice Thorogood  00:45
it, right? Okay, so you arrived. You and Tommy were administrators to begin with.

Edna Owen  00:55
Yes,

Maurice Thorogood  00:56
but you had no technical skill. What you knew the where the cameramen were, where the editors were. Can you remember where you got that staff from?

Edna Owen  01:10
I think, if I remember rightly, John Cotter, when he was appointed, was responsible for what would you call it introducing, I think, perhaps is the best word. They came from the BBC, and what was the name of the other news reels in those days?

Maurice Thorogood  01:38
Pathe

Edna Owen  01:38
Pathe   and another one, Gaumont,

Maurice Thorogood  01:43
go. Yes, yes, Gomont British News. That's right,

Edna Owen  01:46
I think they always used to say that we, we attracted the best of what there was because of the salaries we were willing to pay.

Maurice Thorogood  02:00
It must have been, though, quite worrying for established BBC cameramen and editors and journalists to want to leave those and come to ITN, which,

Edna Owen  02:13
which we didn't know about.

Maurice Thorogood  02:15
No. So, what was it that attracted them? It was, it just the salary, 

Edna Owen  02:19
I think it was just the salary, and the pos, as far as I remember, and the possibility of an enormous amount of travel. They really traveled the world, you see, the cat, the sound men much more than the silent men

Maurice Thorogood  02:42
and presumably you were also responsible for some members of staff coming to ITN with an upgrade from what they did, perhaps from assistant cameraman, sub editor, 

Edna Owen  02:59
That would have been if it would have been editors or journalists, it would have been Arthur Clifford. If it was camera side, it would have been John Cotter, who knew the industry very well.

Maurice Thorogood  03:16
And how many people do you think you've been responsible for who started at ITN, who discovered that ITN offered them a career.

Edna Owen  03:34
Oh, Maurice, I can't answer that one,

Maurice Thorogood  03:38
because there were a lot of people that you employed there. 

Edna Owen  03:41
Oh yes, I can't. I can't answer why they came or why they stayed there. Oh, yes, I think I can answer why they stayed. After Tommy and I married and came to live down here in Worthing we used to have luncheon parties about three times a year for members of the staff who wanted to come, and I was sitting next door to one of the girls on one occasion. Do you want her name, Maureen Ballard? And I said, you know, Maureen, Tommy, and I are very, very happy when you all come down to see us again. And she said, "Well, Edna, you do know why we come, don't you? And I said, "No, but I do have a feeling I'm going to hear. She said, "We come to you now, you're retired, because you and Tommy were always there for us. If we had a problem, we didn't have to solve it. We used to bring it to you, and we never heard any more about it, and it was solved for us. Is that what you want

Maurice Thorogood  04:59
and. So there was a sense of family,

Edna Owen  05:02
that's it, that's it, and I can assure you that they worked, as you know, on a seven day fortnight shift, and if any of the girl, the girls, I don't know about the men, but if any of the girls that were the studio people who were also on shift ever wanted some time off, they would come and say, Enna, can I have so and so? I never asked why ever. They would say, oh, so and so will take my place, that so and so never let them down. We were never short of staff, and I never - they never let me down, and they never lied to me.

Maurice Thorogood  05:56
So there were one or two marriages that took place. 

Edna Owen  06:03
 Oh, yes. Jim Breeden married, married Virginia Meadows. Bob Bateman married Margot. It's gone. Can't think, can't think of her other name.

Maurice Thorogood  06:20
And you, of course, were always Miss Owen.

Edna Owen  06:24
Always,

Maurice Thorogood  06:24
yes, you were Miss Owen to me, and I called you Miss Owen. So you, you'd work with Tommy.

Edna Owen  06:38
I'd worked with him eight years before we joined up to go to ITN, and then

Maurice Thorogood  06:45
you married,

Edna Owen  06:47
and then we married. Yes,

Maurice Thorogood  06:48
and came to live in Worthing.

Edna Owen  06:50
Oh, yes. When we retired, we came to live down here. Yes.

Maurice Thorogood  06:55
And how many of the the ITN staff from those days are you now in contact with

Edna Owen  07:03
well, if it's any guide for you. I left iITN in 1961 and last Christmas, which was 2009 I had 16 Christmas cards from people I worked with in ITN if that gives you any guide.

Maurice Thorogood  07:28
All right, I'm going to take you back now to, to that, that first. Can you recall the impression that you had when you walked into the office, and what lay ahead of you? And can you remember what you did on your first day?

Edna Owen  07:50
No, I can't, because we were in Ingersoll House. We were not in TV house, we were across the road in Ingersoll House, it was all very jumbled up, very jumbled, because nobody really quite knew what they were supposed to be doing at that stage. The only thing that I did do remember is that Aidan insisted upon getting up daily some sort of news bulletin on with which the newscaster, i.e. Chris Chataway, could, could practice.

Maurice Thorogood  08:30
Oh, so you, you had lots of rehearsals. 

Edna Owen  08:33
Oh yes, there were lots of rehearsals before we ever crossed the road to go into Television House.

Maurice Thorogood  08:40
Oh, I see,

Edna Owen  08:41
and he used to insist, not request, insist that the whole of the staff attended these rehearsals.

Maurice Thorogood  08:51
Why?

Edna Owen  08:53
To give, I suspect. Remember, Chris Chataway was an Olympic runner, not used to standing in front of an enormous number of people and talking, not used to that, but he got used to taking the finger from stars. Exactly what you're doing here, it was a practice, it was a rehearsal to go in later on.

Maurice Thorogood  09:23
How long was it from the moment you arrived on your first day to the first transmission,

Edna Owen  09:33
first of all, March, April, May, July, August, seven months and 22 days,

Maurice Thorogood  09:46
so can you? If I start you from there, do you want a drink? You're right, you okay? If you start a sentence now. Now, from it took seven months and two days from to start. We practiced, we rehearsed and practiced for seven months. 

Edna Owen  10:13
Well thet used to make up a bulletin, the newsroom, the people employed as the newsroom people would make up the bulletin for the news reader as though he was reading it over the air. Did every day it went out like now I'm just trying to think how many we had. I think it was only one a day, and I think it was 6o'clock so many minutes,

Maurice Thorogood  10:43
15 minutes was

Edna Owen  10:44
it, and then of course they went on to news at 10, which put them up to 20, whatever.

Maurice Thorogood  10:52
Who, so you had Chris Chataway, who go through the names of the newscasters at the time, those very early days, Chris

Edna Owen  11:01
Chris Chataway, Robin Day, that was all I think. Yes, yes, I don't think there was anybody else right in those early days.

Maurice Thorogood  11:14
Fine, let me see what else can I ask you, can you describe when you first got into Television House? What was it like?

Edna Owen  11:37
Well, it had already been offices, because it was the Air Ministry, just like any other building with offices. I would say to you,

Maurice Thorogood  11:50
so building work had to start, 

Edna Owen  11:52
Thev wiring had to start from there, and that was looked after by a man called Bill Sweeney, he's that was the sound man. Now, who was the vision engineer? Bill Sweeney,

Maurice Thorogood  12:14
I think it was Bill Sweeney

Edna Owen  12:17
that he was sound engineer.

Maurice Thorogood  12:19
He was the chief engineer.

Edna Owen  12:20
Yes, he was indeed, and I can't remember who the vision man was now. No, can't remember.

Maurice Thorogood  12:29
So, let's talk about an empty building that had to be equipped. You had to get film equipment, you had to get a laboratory up there. How was all that organized? 

Edna Owen  12:40
Well a lot of the laboratory was put up on the seventh floor because of fire risk, and the film used to come in undeveloped in those days. I cannot remember. Oh, I think I

Maurice Thorogood  13:05
Where did you buy all that equipment from?

Edna Owen  13:07
No idea. Can't answer that.

Maurice Thorogood  13:09
Don't know,

Edna Owen  13:10
don't know. That would be specialized equipment.

Maurice Thorogood  13:14
Ray Perrin would have been.

Edna Owen  13:16
Yes,

Maurice Thorogood  13:16
yes, yes,

Edna Owen  13:17
that was the name I was fighting to remember.

Maurice Thorogood  13:19
All right, okay, fine. So you new question, okay? You must have seen an enormous difference when you, from the time that you first went into television house to the moment seven months later when you went on air,

Edna Owen  13:47
how can I describe it to you? It became well, let's say that we put it under rehearsal for the for that length of time, and it became came to fruition on the 22nd of September 1955

Maurice Thorogood  14:07
tell me again about that party you had. Why did you have this party?

Edna Owen  14:14
Aidan Crawley wanted to celebrate having staff together. He had an enormous respect and admiration for the staff that he'd got round him. He gave them, always gave them credit for whatever they.. he was that sort of person, and all he said was, "I want a celebration altogether. before we take over, go on shift duty, take a take over at the weekend on shift duty, and that was all he said to me, that was all to celebrate, he. You,

Maurice Thorogood  15:00
thank you. Okay. All right, darling. Thank you very much indeed. I think we've done it. Yes, is there anything else that you want to say?

Edna Owen  15:11
Only that it was one of them, certainly, of all the years I was out at work all together during my lifetime for 42 years, and the six years I spent at ITN certainly were the most exciting and exhilarating job I had. Wonderful,

Maurice Thorogood  15:32
that'll do for me. Thank you.

Edna Owen  15:34
Wonderful.

Maurice Thorogood  15:34
Well done, well done.

Edna Owen  15:38
Thank you, darling. Not a bad memory for 95

Maurice Thorogood  15:44
95 so Edna, this is just for those who need to write this out. Edna is e d n a

Edna Owen  15:55
e d n

Maurice Thorogood  15:56
a, and Owen was o w e n, and Tommy T O double M Y

Edna Owen  16:04
O T O double M Y, but he was Thomas, really T H O M A S,

Maurice Thorogood  16:09
right,

Edna Owen  16:09
Tom, but he was known to everybody as TT

Maurice Thorogood  16:12
T, that's just so he was, yes, of course he was, was

Edna Owen  16:15
known to everyone as T T,

Maurice Thorogood  16:17
of course he was, yes is T T, the one

Edna Owen  16:20
of the saddest things don't do this, but one of the saddest things that ever happened to ITN Aidan Crawley, in those days commercial television was the whole of it, not not news only, but the whole of it was administered, no. it's not the word

Maurice Thorogood  16:47
controlled.

Edna Owen  16:48
Yes, I think you could use the word controlled. And there was a man called, or I never remember his surname, who was who controlled the whole of independent television, not the news, but the whole lot, and it was a committee, and Aidan fell out with them. I don't know why I can't answer that now. Can I give you anybody who can answer it? No, nobody left. Oh, Frank may know, but don't let him make it up.

Maurice Thorogood  17:27
Yeah, all right. I'm going to switch off now. John, this is a picture of Tommy at his at his desk. This would have been even before he joined ITN. Hello, this is a picture of him at the BBC. Who's that? Is this picture of Tommy at the BBC before he joined ITN? That one of him at the desk, he's working at the BBC.

Edna Owen  18:02
Yes, yes,

Maurice Thorogood  18:07
lovely, good, I Just tell me again, when was your wedding day,

Edna Owen  18:41
24th of March 1973 37 years ago.

Maurice Thorogood  18:50
Thank you. That's it, John. That's it. Thank Sorry, John, that, that, that wasn't it. This is

Edna Owen  22:18
what, darling.

Maurice Thorogood  22:19
So I'm just talking to the editor, John Harwood. You remember John Harwood?

Edna Owen  22:27
Yes, I do indeed.

Maurice Thorogood  22:29
The brothers, John and Dave,

Edna Owen  22:35
he's doing very well with the website, isn't

Maurice Thorogood  22:37
he? Yes, he's doing very well indeed. He John, you may be able to use this as on the top of the piece, just just simply use it as me recording and stick it on as a piece to camera, or as a bit of commentary, really, over the various pictures that I've, that I've got. Anyway, this is a commentary to introduce Edna. When Edna Owen joined ITN in 1955 Tommy Trail, known as TT, was company secret. Then on the 25th of March 1973 after knowing Tommy for 37 years, they got married, but to early ITN staff she was always known as Miss Owen. When Edna Owen joined ITN in 1955 Tommy Trail, known as TT, was the company's secretary and chief accountant. Then on the 25th of March 1973 after knowing Tommy for 37 years, they got married, but to early it and staff Edna was always known as Miss Owen I Do I bet 123, but when Emma Owen joined ITN in 1955 Tommy Trail, known as TT, was the company secretary and chief accountant. Then, on the 25th of March, 1973 after knowing Tommy for 37 years, they got married, but to early itn staff, Edna was always known as Miss Owen. Okay. Thank you very much indeed. That's it. That's a wrap. Thank you.

Edna Owen  27:03
Let's see

Maurice Thorogood  27:04
what we get. Okay, in 1955 Okay,

Edna Owen  27:15
in 1955 when Tommy asked me if I wanted a new job. I said, what would it be? And he said, my administrative assistant. I can remember clearly saying, how much is the salary? And when he told me, I simply said, when do I start, and which was only about a month away. He didn't join it until February the first, and I joined him on March the first, 1955 Hold that nano, but it's fine.

Maurice Thorogood  28:28
It that's it, okay. Now then, and point it towards me, that's it in when Edna joined ITN in 1955 Tommy Trail was the company secretary and chief accountant. Then on the 25th of March 1973 after knowing Tommy for 37 years, they got married in the early days at ITN. Edna was always known as Miss Owen. I'll do that one more time. I'll just take that, just take that down to there. Oh, sorry, sweet, sorry, but your finger, that's it. I just want to see your face. That's it. When Owen joined ITN in 1955 Tommy Trail, known as TT, was the company secretary and the chief accountant. Then, on the 25th of March, 1973 37 years after knowing Tommy, they got married, but to early staff at ITN, Edna was always known as Miss Owen. Thank you. That's it. Good. Okay. Sorry, I hurt you.

Edna Owen  29:50
Can I take them off?

Maurice Thorogood  29:51
Yes, you can. Thank you very much.

Edna Owen  30:02
Good,

Maurice Thorogood  30:06
close that up, take that off. Take there we are........................................................................


Transcribed by https://otter.ai