Old Faireys

The staff photograph outside the office in Reform Road was taken after the takeover by Clyde, about 1979.  At one of the White Waltham reunions a few years ago, everyone was asked to fill in all the names they could remember.  There are still gaps, so if you can fill them in, please let us know.

DM04 Old Faireys

 

Nigeria geophysical survey 1974/75

Derek Minter contributed these photos taken during the Nigerian geophysical survey 1974/75, when the crews were based in Enugu, and the job specs and briefing notes.  The photos feature Nigel Ridley-Thomas (glasses), Alex Copeland and an unknown Nigerian carrying a cast iron bath.

G39 Nigeria Job specs

G39 Nigeria briefing notes

Air Surveyor magazines

The Air Surveyor was a quarterly magazine with articles written by staff from all departments and locations from 1957 to 1960, and distributed internally.  Lots of in jokes and clever line drawings – even a crossword.

News Bulletin No 1 – 31st Mar 1957     The title wasn’t fixed, and there was a competition for the name of the new bulletin – prize 200 cigarettes!  None of the suggestions for a title was felt to be entirely suitable (Fairey Tales from Fairchild Aerial Surveys, Fairey Stories from Gillian Waring, F.A.S. Mosaic from Fred Crooks …) so the Managing Director selected the title of “The Air Surveyor”.  The 200 cigarettes were given to Gillian Waring and Fred Crooks, to be shared equally.

Air Surveyor No 2 – 31st Jul 1957

Air Surveyor No 3 – 31st Oct 1957

Air Surveyor No 4 – Christmas 1957

Air Surveyor No 5 – 31st Mar 1958

Air Surveyor No 6 – 30th Jun 1958

Air Surveyor No 7 – September 1958

Air Surveyor No 8 – December 1958

Air Surveyor No 9 – Spring 1959

Air Surveyor No 10 – Autumn 1959

Air Surveyor – Spring 1960    No number on this edition – was this the last?  Let us know if you have any others.

Fairey News / Fairey Review

Fairey News was the newsletter of the Fairey Group, and had items from all the subsidiary companies.  Fairey Review was an earlier incarnation of the same thing, but much bigger and glossier.  We have only one copy of Fairey News, from 1972, and two copies of the Fairey Review, courtesy of Lawrence Scott, from December 1960 and June 1964.

The content covers the very varied and specialised work done by the Fairey Group: beer kegs from Fairey Stainless, power boats from Fairey Marine, air and ground survey work by Fairey Air Surveys for the Maidenhead bypass (first bit of the M4?), nuclear, military and radio telescope work from Fairey Engineering, and much more.

These files are very big, and may take a few minutes to display.

If you are using Firefox / Mozilla, the photographs may not display very well.  If you have a download option (top right of the screen, after the file has downloaded) select it and then open the file with Adobe Reader.

Fairey News 5 – Spring 1972

Fairey Review Vol5 No5 – June 1964

Fairey Review Vol3 No4 – December 1960

Air Survey Brochure

This is a wonderful marketing brochure in English and Spanish about the preparation and compilation of aerial survey maps, from Tony Furneaux’s files.  It describes the uses and benefits of aerial photography, with some wonderful photographs, including one mosaic of the Rejang River delta in Sarawak, Indonesia.  It has no date, but has the company names of both Air Survey Co Ltd and Aerographic Surveys Ltd, subsidiaries of The Fairey Aviation Company Ltd.

Air Survey brochure compilation

Tony Furneaux photos

Attached are a number of photos from Tony Furneaux’s files, which will be sorted into department categories later.  Some have unidentified people in – please send in a comment with the reference number if you want to add anything to the caption.  Click on the thumbnail for the full picture.