Rediffusion Poulton

When training at Poulton started in 1953 the very first course was studying the technicalities of the Plessey 9" valve television.
Things changed in the early 1960's with the introduction of Transistors and Printed Circuit Boards in television design.
Next to follow was the change to 625 line transmissions and the move to Colour Television.

On June 23 1933, Poulton celebrated its 3,000th training
course for technicians.
Since 1953, something like 15,000 service staff had passed through its doors, learning how to repair Rediffusion’s own
TVs and cable systems.

Poulton, once part of Rediffusion Engineering, became a division of Rediffusion Central Services in 1980.
This meant that the facility became responsible for
organising all aspects of company training, including sales

Over this 30 year period some 15,000 staff members had passed through the doors of "The Manor" and received some of the finest training that was available to the industry during that period.

The origin of Rediffusion's own Training School lies with a Chief Engineer’s conference held some time in 1952.
TV was on the way, and Rediffusion had its own solution: the new HF cable system, unique to the company. The trouble was that nobody, apart from the boffins, knew how to operate it. There was no pool of technicians who understood it, and the conference realised they would have to 'grow their own’. The answer, they decided, was a training school.
The Manor at Poulton-le-Fylde, then empty and with a chequered history behind it including a spell as a vegetarian guest house, was the site picked for the school. Most of the cable systems were in the north at that time, and there was plenty of cheap
accommodation in Blackpool, two miles away.

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