'Looking around Racal's modern factory at
So starts a story in Electronics Weekly's edition of April 26th 1961 describing a visit to Racal Engineering - the company which later spawned Racal Telecom which became Vodafone.
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'What is the dynamic force behind such an enterprise?' asked the article rhetorically, answering itself 'the dynamism came from two young men Raymond Frederick Brown and George Calder Cunningham, who were partners in a one room consultancy business.
'Their subject was communications, in which both had had experience during the war,' continues the piece, 'as consultants they had also been obliged to negotiate the supply of equipment but, in the post-war years, this was not easy to obtain. The answer was to manufacture.'
'They took the plunge with £2,000 of capital. By compounding their Christian names they coined a new word, Racal, and formed Racal Engineering Ltd. This was in 1951 with five people on the payroll.'
So started the company which was to become the most valuable firm in the FTSE.
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