BBC Radio 4 – Computing Britain, LEO the Electronic Office.
Comments on the Programme from Peter Byford
I heard the programme in your Computing Britain series about LEO. Whilst I was
delighted that you made a programme about LEO and Lyons, I was disappointed about
a number of aspects about it.
You used our film and other recordings that we provided, I should also state that
we hold the Copyright of the LEO film, made in 1957 as I told you. Despite this there
was no acknowledgement of the Society or mention of its excellent website – see below. I
looked at your website and there was no mention there either. Please correct this when
you can and acknowledge the Society.
You used a number of people in your programme who were not LEO people to
describe Lyons and LEO and possibly because of this you made some mistakes. The only
LEO people the late Ernest Kaye, Mary Coombs and Gloria Guy were taken from
recordings/YouTube that we provided to you. The Society has a number of quite
eloquent speakers who are, of course, knowledgeable about LEO. We could have
checked your facts corrected any errors you have made before it was broadcast. One
significant error was that you stated that LEO was operational in 1956 – no it was in
November 1951 when the first LEO program went operational.
I know Tilly Blythe of course, but who were that other people who were on
the programme? Other than the presenter of course, they were not mentioned