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View of the Great West Road from the Iron Bridge, 1973

The twelve-storey Turriff Building was built in 1960 as the new London headquarters for the Turriff Construction Corporation. The Grace's Guide to Industrial History website includes a b/w photo of the newly completed building and notes 'associated companies' also had offices here.

A bit of Googling found an advert placed in The New Scientist in 1963
'C-E-I-R (UK) Ltd Require Mathematicians
C-E-I-R specializes in the use of large computers ... excellent opportunities have arisen for mathematicians with computer programming experience ... We have in mind a starting salary in the range of about £1,750 - £2,250. Benefits include a pension scheme, three weeks' annual holiday and opportunities for foreign travel.'
Applications were to be sent to the Personnel Manager, The Turriff Building, Great West Road, Brentford

This sounds a very generous wage, but computer science courses were few at the time. The starting salary for a trainee computer programmer 15 years later was around £3,250 in the midlands.

Full list of Peter's photos

Published August 2016