John Gill retires
Calling ‘Time’ on a fantastic career, the end of an era and farewell to a friend.
This week saw the retirement of a loyal employee and great friend of Astro Communications. John Gill, who has been on the team for 26 years resolved his last issue, logged his last ticket and closed down his PC for the last time this Thursday.
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The occasion was marked by an excellent party at Birchwood Park Golf Club which was not only fully attended by the Astro team but also friends that John has made through Astro over the years.
”Mrs Gill is slightly worried that without the office to shoulder some of John’s collection obsession…
John retires to a full life of antique hunting, researching history and archaeology amongst his many passions. Mrs Gill is slightly worried that without the office to shoulder some of John’s collection obsession she will very soon find herself living amidst even more crazy and interesting articles.
As a parting gift for John the Astro team clubbed together and bought him an antique railway clock which he has been looking for since early in his career. He initially spotted one in a shop while working in the North but pressures of the work and bad timing got in the way of him getting to the shop while it was open so he missed his chance of owning one. John was absolutely thrilled with the gift and it will immediately take pride of place in the Gill household. It was a fantastic find by Kim Johnstone as was the cake she had made to match the clock.
”It was a fantastic find… as was the cake she had made to match the clock.”
Tributes were paid to John by Steve Hodges (MD), James Tuck who John has been mentoring since he started as an apprentice and one of our past customers who had worked with John for many years. I paid my own tribute to John reflecting on the 32 years I have worked with John – 26 years on the Astro team plus six years before that as customer and colleague at Cable & Wireless.
John had originally come along to help us out for a day when we one of our other long standing team members needed a hand with some cabling when he was between jobs due to his former employer relocating. The original one day turned into a couple of weeks, such was the pace our business was changing at the time. We were in our fourth year of business and our customer base was not only growing but the size of the projects we were being asked to undertake was growing. During John’s two weeks of helping us out my co-founder was asked to undertake a three week consultancy project with National Grid so John’s two weeks turned into five. The National Grid contract evolved into nine months and the rest is history.
“John had originally come along to help us out for a day… the rest is history.”
The time I spent working with John were some of the toughest but most fun years of my career. We spent many years leaving home on a Sunday night and not returning home again until Friday night. We never knew where we were going to be each week other than perhaps the first two days. Back then there were limited standards, equipment was fairly unreliable and remote access for fault diagnosis was rare. These years were the pioneering years of networking, much of our time was spent feeding design flaw information back to manufacturers and working closely with software and hardware developers.
Over a number of years we averaged 1,000 miles a week clocking up an incredible 50,000 miles a year. One of John’s company cars achieved the all-time Astro record of covering over 300,000 miles before we parted with it. I distinctly remember one very long day when we started our Thursday towards the end of a long week at the National Mines Rescue Centre, Crossgates, Fife in Scotland, just to the north of the Forth Bridge. Before we left there we had a fault call from British Coal’s Durham office so we had to head to Framwellgate Moor next. While on the journey we had another call from the Leeds office and as the day went on we had visited seven customer sites to carry out changes to their systems or resolve problems. We ended our day at Bridgend in Wales ready for the next day at Llanharan Colliery arriving at the hotel at 2am to a plate of sandwiches that John had negotiated with the hotelier.
”Our drama didn’t end there… it was 9pm on a Friday, 200 miles away from home and locked in a mine…”
Our drama didn’t end there. After a long day at Llanharan the security guard was keen to get away and we were the only thing between him and his pint at the miners club. Unfortunately, when we told him we were finished he didn’t give us time to load our car and leave the site before he locked up. So, it was 9pm on a Friday, 200 miles away from home and locked in a mine with no way out. We even called the police but having responded by sending a car to us in minutes were unable to contact anyone to let us out. Luckily the security guard realised that he hadn’t seen us leave and came back and all was well with the world again.
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On the subject of hotels and food, John always had a knack of finding somewhere to stay at all hours of the day and night. He could also get us a meal when we needed one. However, on one occasion I believe this was pure luck rather than judgement. I was mid-winter and we were working in Glasgow but staying in Drymen, at a regular Astro haunt, The Winnock Hotel. We had arrived back too late for dinner so we headed off to the local Chinese restaurant but that was closed too. We were running out of options and saw the lights of The Leaping Salmon Inn shimmering in the distance. We walked into the empty bar and asked if there was any food. The barman confirmed our suspicions by telling us we were too late. We were just about to walk out when he called out to us in a broad Scottish accent. “Have ye not eaten?” “No.” We replied in unison. He said “Sit yerself doon.” So we ordered a pint each and offered the barman a drink which he refused and with 15 minutes he arrived with two rounds of sandwiches and a bowl of leek and potato soup each and would not take a penny for it. Scottish hospitality at its best.
”John goes with the best wishes of the entire team… he leaves behind a legacy that will never be forgotten.”
I have so many stories from the years we worked together and I am sure we will have many laughs and nostalgia trips when we meet up in the future. I never thought John would retire, he has been a part of our history as Astro employee number five (with the founders being one and two).
John goes with the best wishes of the entire team. His quirky and direct personality, as well as his mischievous behaviour will be missed in the office but he leaves behind a legacy that will never be forgotten.
We wish you all the very best John, we know you will keep in touch and we look forward to seeing you soon.
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Links
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- Astro Facebook page for more photos of John’s retirement party.
- Birchwood Park Golf Club
- The National Mines Rescue Centre
- Llanharan Colliery
- The Winnock Hotel
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