A chance meeting at the Local History Museum in late 2022 has led to the creation of a new archive for Redditch. Dave Handley was visiting the museum to see information held there on Bridely Moor School and was shown around by volunteer Derek Coombes. In conversation Dave and Derek discovered that there was a period back in the 1980s when they both worked at local IT company ISTEL, although they never actually met whilst there.
Checking what information the museum had on ISTEL revealed it was limited to two publicity brochures and a mug. This they found very disappointing.
Putting this into context, throughout Redditch history since the 18th century there have be organisations which grew to be dominant employers in the town. Companies like Alcock and Milwards in the needle trade, Royal Enfield, Terry's and the Batteries to name few. In the last quarter of the 20th century ISTEL was that organization but just three artifacts were available to remember it.
Growing of the internal computer services department at British Leyland, first as BL System Limited and later in 1983, ISTEL they became the largest non-public sector employer and had offices at many locations in the town including a state of the art Data Centre at Moons Moat, there were offices in Grosvenor House (the Company’s HQ), Highfield House,, Springfield House, Regents Court along with many satellite offices on Moons Moat. They even had offices in Market Square above M&S.
Derek reinforces this saying, “ISTEL brought a lot of employment to the area, contributed greatly to the local economy and supported many worthwhile causes. And we were just amazed at how little remained of the organization in the town and now the name ISTEL has virtually vanished”
He continues, “The last AT&T ISTEL operation moved out of Redditch earlier this year to allow Highfield House to be converted to flats and now the Computer Data Centre on Ravensbrook Drive is up for sale and re-development. We must not let the ISTEL story to be forgotten.”
So Dave & Derek embarked on a mission to keep the memory of ISTEL alive for future generations and four months later they are amazed at the response they have had. They started on two tracks. Dave, having spent 30+ years with ISTEL in its many guises, started to contact former colleagues to gauge reaction to the project. This has proved very fruitful and word of the project has now spread to many former employees. The second initiative was to create a focused Facebook group – Istel ex employees – to help spread the word outside of Dave and Derek’s contacts again this has been very beneficial to the aims of the project.
Dave takes up the story “When we set up the Facebook group, we had no idea what level of interest there would be. Once it started it became apparent that we were not the only ones with fond memories of ISTEL. What we found even more surprising was that people had kept an amazing range of ISTEL mementos. These included ties, awards, promotional clothing , ear plugs and all manner of things. They have received lots of photos too. This demonstrates the enthusiasm and affection for the company people had working there.”
The need for the project has proved to be so high that they have been able to include support from several senior managers from ISTEL, including John Leighfield CBE, who was the Chairman and Chief Executive of ISTEL. John’s enthusiasm for the project included a visit to Redditch from his home in Oxfordshire to meet Dave and Derek during which he donated many of his personal collection of artifacts to them. These artifacts have enabled us to tell the story of ISTEL’s rise to one of the leading IT companies in the 80s and 90s, including the story behind the Management led, employee buyout in 1986 and the sale of ISTEL to AT&T in 1989.
Derek remarks “We therefore needed a showcase for this information and therefore we created the “Remembering ISTEL” website which we are gradually populating with these memories and artifacts.”
Now we have collected several hundred artefacts relating to ISTEL; Have an active group of over 350 ex ISTEL employees on facebook who are sharing their memories of ISTEL and re-acquainting with past friends and colleague; Have held two successful exhibitions promoting the project and mounted a Blue Plaque commemorating ISTEL on its former HQ, Grosvenor House.
Our task for 2025 is to complete the documention of the archives created and hand them over to the British Motor Museum at Gaydon for long-term storage and access.