Ron Levett, born in Alfriston, East Sussex, enlisted in 1943, and whilst posted to the British Liberation Army, took part in the liberation of Germany. He then returned to England, setting up his own electronics business and developing an interest in the new entertainment of the time - television.

One Christmas we were asked to install a TV and aerial for Mr and Mrs Robinson at Berwick Station. We were not allowed to install the aerial on the chimney, so had to erect a mast in the garden.

This was in three sections made up of aluminium sections, each ten foot long. The aerials were 'H' shaped for Channel 1 (BBC) and a double five shape for Channel 10 (Dover). After fitting the aerials and guy wires, we erected the mast to its correct orientation.

Unfortunately both Frank and I thought that the other was holding the mast and both walked away to pull out the stay wires. There was a loud crash and the mast lay across the garden. The BBC aerial was bent, which we managed to straighten, but the ITA had broken.

We cut away the broken pieces and re-installed it as a single five. After Christmas we went back and repaired it.

At the time a lot of people were unsure of the benefit of owning a TV, so we started doing demonstrations using a portable 30ft mast. This took around an hour to erect, so even if we did sell a set there wasn't a lot of profit in it.

It is a little ironic that our pioneering work to sell the idea of TV in those early days paid off for the large department stores without any service engineers, who reaped all the benefits.

At Christmas 1963, we were asked to install a new TV at a cottage in Crowlink, the village that lies off the A259 near East Dean.

We installed an aerial on the roof, but had great difficulty getting a good signal, because the village is situated in a deep valley. We said that we would come back after Christmas to install a higher mast.

On New Years Day we woke up to a completely white world. Snow had fallen, the deepest I have ever seen, before or since.

All roads were blocked, including the main roads, which took days before they were ploughed. The country roads were blocked for weeks. Snow filled them right up to the level of the hedges.

John Tutt the 'Man from the Pru' struggled all the way from Berwick Station to Berwick village through snow up to his waist.

Work was suspended until traffic could move again. We eventually returned to Crowlink in April as it having taken that long for the snow to clear in such a deep valley.

We discovered that a neighbour of our customer had hired a car in Brighton for the Christmas holiday. It was returned to the garage in April!

Ron Levett, 2001