It was the BBC which brought me to Ealing, where it seems that everybody has worked for the BBC, does work for the BBC or will work for the BBC, although this will be less true now that Television Centre has closed. Actually I now realise that four of my five siblings have lived in Ealing (and one still does) although none has any connection with the BBC.
Having passed the site of the Television Centre during its construction (our occasional visits to London brought us down Wood Lane), it was quite a moment to walk through the doors as an employee in 1969.
BBC Television Centre
When I joined the BBC I was doing shift work, so there was less travelling and much of it was not in the rush hour, so we had a wide choice of places to live, and our first house was in Amersham.
But in 1973 I moved into a job based in Shepherds Bush and on a 5-day week and very soon decided to move closer to my work. As a result we moved to West Acton from where a short ride on the 207 (still using routemasters back then) took me to work.
The house we bought needed a lot of work, but as I was home by 6pm, I had had a meal and was ready to start on the DIY by about 7. I usually expected to work until 11, but if I started making mistakes (cutting a piece of wood a foot too short, hitting my thumb with a hammer etc) I knew it was time to down tools for the day.