THE BRIDGE INTERVIEW WITH DEREK COTTERILL

Older readers will recall a time when a telephone was a large lump of bakelite wired into one one room in your house, usually the hall, where you used it standing up. Derek Cotterill’s career links that time with the information superhighway and along the way includes a large element of public service.

To begin at the beginning: Derek was born in 1942 at North Hinksey on the western fringe of Oxford. His grandfather was a farmer at Worton, near Cassington, while his father’s career included a spell on a sheep station in Australia, operating a mobile crane during the Second World War and post-war work building Morris Minors at Cowley.

Derek was a bright boy and passed the 11+ exam into the City of Oxford High School for Boys in George Street (the building is now used by the university.) It was an old- fashioned grammar school where the masters 

(all male) wore gowns and the pupils learned Latin: he still remembers studying Caesar’s defeat of Vercingetorix in the Commentarii de Bello Gallico. However his favourite subjects were physics and chemistry while his main interests were practical (he had already become an enthusiastic photographer) so instead of taking a degree in theoretical science he joined Post Office Telephones. At that time the Post Office had a monopoly of telephone services, before that business was spun off as BT and later privatised.

He was trained in long-distance telephony at Stone in Staffordshire and then worked for a while at Oxford but, finding this a bit of a dead end, he left and moved to Canada, working for Bell Telephone in Toronto. By this time he was married to Susan whom he had met at a travel club in Oxford. After two years Susan’s father became seriously ill so they moved back in order to support her mother.

The Post Office, clearly impressed by Derek’s experience in Canada and identifying him as a rising star, gave him a job as a lecturer at their engineering college, Horwood House, near Bletchley where rough-hewn graduates were polished up to become the telecoms experts of the future. His next move was to London dealing with submarine cables. Analogue, co- axial cables had limited capacity and were heavy for ships to lift when broken by beam trawlers and supertanker anchors. The era of fibre optics was dawning.

Derek and Susan were very keen to start a family but were unsuccessful despite medical help. They therefore put their names down for adoption and acquired Ian in this way. Susan almost immediately became pregnant and Ruth arrived; there were only 38 weeks between the two events. Sadly Susan died eight years ago. Ian is a musician who teaches percussion, piano, composition and arranging at two schools in London. He has twin daughters aged 16. Ruth is director of environment and sustainability at Wessex Water (one of the better water companies, Derek informs us).

In 1988 the first transatlantic optical fibre cable was laid. Global digital interconnectivity enabled airlines and banks to build their own digital networks and Derek was busy travelling to build the Galileo IBM SNA reservation network for BA, United Airlines and others and providing data networking services for BT’s overseas customers. BT wanted to become global and bought Tymnet, a worldwide data network, from McDonnell Douglas for USD355 million. Derek was sent to Paris for three years as its technical director for Europe, building the network and numerous data centres across Europe.. His children stayed here to study for their GCSEs/A levels but enjoyed spending school holidays in France.

In 1992 BT had no other job available for him so he retired for the first time. Derek and Susan had by this time moved from Long Hanborough to a cottage in Shilton and Derek did the internal renovation as well as some consultancy work.

Then an Italian colleague called him and said he needed someone to set up an international network for the newly formed Telecom Italia. This led to three years in Rome. Those who took part in the Arts Society Cotswolds trip to Sicily can attest to his ability to chat to waiters in Italian, and he tells us that he has a repertoire of rude expressions in that language. Finally, there was time in Holland and a year in Frankfurt with Deutsche Telekom.

During his time in Italy they sold the rather unpractical cottage in Shilton in favour of a more manageable house in Burford. Derek was immediately enlisted by the then mayor, Keith Davies, to help with a millennium project by photographing all the facades in the High Street and Hill and the people behind them, work which filled six albums now held at the Tolsey Archive. He also taught English as a foreign language at schools in Oxford for five years.

Local government called in 2002 when Derek joined Burford Town Council where he remained until January this year. He was also persuaded to stand for the district council. He served on this from 2006 to 2022, including four years as chairman and time on the uplands planning committee, chairing the environment committee and the finance and management committee. During this time, with David Cohen as mayor, a housing needs survey was carried out and this led to the construction of new housing at Falkland Close, Frethern Court and Cheatle Court, homes which are managed by Cottsway Housing.

Derek also joined the Burford School Foundation charity. This owned a 16 acre field next to the golf course. The Burford in Need charity owned an adjacent one and a half acre site on which they had hoped to build a care home. The two bodies got together to see what could be done. There followed a story of many twists and turns including plans for a convalescent home scuppered by NHS cuts, changes in the planning rules by the coalition government, negotiations with several property companies and a successful appeal against an initial refusal of planning permission. During John White’s long tenure as mayor the development known now as Cotswold Gate took place, with the proceeds split between the two charities.

What else? Derek was also at the forefront of the twinning scheme with Potenza Picena (Italy again). This culminated in the publication of Burford and Its Soul, a weighty 300-page volume of photographs of Burford and its residents taken by Derek and three Italian colleagues. Sadly the twinning arrangements seem to have run their course and further projects of this sort are unlikely.

Now that he has relinquished his council and charity roles, retirement finally beckons for Derek. He plans to take more photographs and we hope some of these will appear in future editions of The Bridge. Paris, Padua and Potenza Picena also beckon. “Arrivederci Burford, ci vediamo a presto.”

Editors