Steve Bacon

Steve Bacon was instrumental in the ICL-CES project, even before he joined as a staff member. As a teacher who was part of the pilot project, he was an active member of the scene and frequently was mentioned and pictured in the ICL-CES newsletters. Steve joined to write the 16- pupil and teacher book 3 and rose to become project director in the latter part of the 70s before leaving to join the Derbyshire LEA in 1981.

Steve was very kind to entertain my questions I sent via email in early 2024. Steve's very generous offer of his time has shed more light on the ICL-CES project to ensure that it is recorded for the future.  A summary of our discussions is below:

"How did you end up joining ICL-CES?"

• Steve: "In 1974, the aforementioned Rosemary Phillips became pregnant.  So ICL-CES started to recruit a new Development Team Leader. The post was advertised nationally and I applied for it. I had been much involved with the project during the school trials 1970 – 72 of course. But had remained very much involved with the project in the following two years. It was during this period that it became apparent to me (and others) that the rather ‘numerical’ approach to Computer Studies practical work was giving CSE courses a rather biassed approach at a time when computers were becoming much more important for information processing than just for numerical processing. So I spent a good deal of time urging the leadership of ICL-CES (firstly Byron Williams and later Colin Hampson-Evans) to consider developing a Book 3 which would be more focused on processing information rather than numbers. I was appointed with a brief to lead the development team and to focus my own contribution on the new Book 3. This was piloted in schools in 1974/75 and published in September 1975. At that point I co-ordinated, edited and partly wrote the Book 3 Teachers’ Guide".

"As ICL-CES project director, what did your role entail?"

• "Steve: Overall management of the ICL-CES finances within the corporate umbrella of ICL. At first ICL-CES was located within ICL’s GPCD (Government and Public Corporations Division) but later a sub-group called Education Region was established within GPCD and ICL-CES was included within it.

• Managing the process of materials development and their printing at ICL Printing Services in Letchworth.

• Managing the storage and distribution of material from the ICL Publications Department in Reading.

• Ensuring the process of receipt of orders from schools and invoicing were carried out efficiently.

• Managing the development of appropriate software for ICL computers used by schools. These were typically located in local government, polytechnics and universities.

• Representing the project on a wide range of projects and initiatives related to the use of computers in schools.

• Managing a range of teacher training events around the country.

• Managing the communications with schools as the project developed. This was partly ad hoc and related to specific projects but also involved running the ICL-CES Regional Advisory Panels and the ICL-CES Advisory Council in London chaired by Sir Bryan Thwaites who was at that time Principal of St. Mary’s College, London".

"Was ICL-CES run as not for profit? What sort of targets did ICL set?"

• Steve: "Yes it was. ICL was keen to play a part in the development of computer education in schools and was prepared to underwrite the project to ensure its success. However, we were urged to run the project on a break-even basis if at all possible. Many of the ‘overheads’ such as accommodation and some staffing costs were undoubtedly covered by ICL.

• I did have to report finances and sales on a monthly basis to my manager in Education Region but I don’t recall undue pressure to reach ‘targets’ in quite the same way as the sales people who were trying to sell ICL computers to universities!

"In your time as ICL-CES, approximately how many staff were there? Did this this number increase through the 70s as student numbers increased? I know staff were based around the country - were there specific departments in specific places?   Frequently in the newsletter it was written that things were ‘hectic’. Was this your view?"

• Steve: "It was all a bit hectic as the enthusiasm for computer education developed through the 70s. The ICL-CES contribution was principally related to Computer Studies, of course, but we all recognised that as computer access improved in schools the wider use of computers to support learning would become increasingly important. This proved to be the case in the 1980s with the arrival of microcomputers in schools.

• The main team included Project Director, secretary, sales team of two or three, development team originally of three but later enlarged to four, software development of one. Order processing was carried out originally in the central team but later devolved to the ICL group in Reading.

• The main team moved from Computer House in London to offices in Reading in about 1977". 

"Newsletter 6 (May/June 1970) writes that the field trials for the 16- book 1 were to start in September 1970. I assume this is what you were part of at Wood Green? (One of the 13 original schools?)"

• Steve: "Correct. During 1969/70 it quickly became apparent that the future of computer studies as a school subject was more likely to develop quickly in the 14-16 age range than in the sixth form. A relatively small number of schools offered Computer Science at ‘A’ Level but this was a time of expanding syllabus opportunity for schools via the new CSE examination structure which extended the exam opportunity for 14 – 16 from ‘O’ Level which was aimed at the top 20% of the ability range (traditionally in grammar schools) to a much wider range for pupils in secondary modern and later comprehensive schools. I joined Wood Green School when it went comprehensive in 1968. I was appointed Head of Maths in 1970 and somehow we became interested in the ICL-CES pilot. The Head (Horace Pooley) was a big noise in the CSE movement and he was very open to the possibility of introducing new curriculum opportunities for 14-16 pupils. In the summer of 1970, he and Imet with Rosemary Phillips who was Development Team Leader at ICL-CES and we agreed to be one of the 13 trial schools".

A question regarded the CES project pre-ICL involvement when it was under the stewardship of the Hoskyns' Group.  I'm currently trying to contact Chris.

• Steve: The lead of the CES project (pre-ICL involvement) was Christopher Wysock-Wright.

"Following on from above, is it correct to say that the Hoskyns Group wrote the A level book (16+) ‘The principles of Computing’ and the teachers guide, because this was before ICL took over the project?"

• Steve: "Correct. The title of the publications was actually “Fundamentals of Computing” and comprised a book (ring binder) for students and a teachers’ guild (also a ring binder). It was published in September 1969 under the ICL-CES logo although I am pretty sure that it was trialled in a number of schools during the previous academic year i.e. 1968/69."

A question regarding the colour (muddy green) of the original printing of the 16- pupil books. All first edition books are the same colour, with the same punch-card graphics. This made it difficult to distinguish book 1 from book 2 and so on in a busy classroom. Later revisions of the first printing change a number of punch cards on the front and on the spine to yellow, to more clearly indicate which book was which. 

• Steve: "This was my idea after joining ICL-CES. I had spent my life trying to distinguish between Books 1 and 2 at school and having a Book 3 would only add to the confusion! So I suggested some small distinguishing feature should be incorporated onto the cover and spine of the three books. We came up with the punched card symbols in yellow."

The second edition of the pupil books had different colours and designs, and were much more easily identified.

• "Again, the team decided that: a. there needed to be a completely different cover to set the new books apart from the old ones. b. the two books would need to be different colours."

Naturally the pupil books were the most popular item bought (and most were reprinted many times). How did the other materials fare like the teachers packs, OHP sets, photo packs etc.   Did the numbers sold of these other items match the expectations?

• Steve: "Yes. The range of teachers’ materials was very popular. This was almost certainly because teachers were picking up computer studies for the first time and had little resource material to fall back on. Teachers’ materials were also reprinted many times.

"Print Runs. I’m trying to gauge how many copies of pupil books were sold.  Any deas?  I know there were several print runs, and I think the first print run for book 3 was around 800 copies - would reprints have been a little smaller than initial orders?"

• I can’t help much here as I don’t have the records. I think print runs were regularly in excess of 1000 every time in order to secure economy of scale. If you think about it, you don’t need many schools buying a class set of 25 books to get though 800 books! And ICL-CES was used in 100s of schools! (See figures below.)

"From these figures, naturally the 16- content must have been the priority, and it certainly had the most column inches in the newsletter. Were these numbers in line with the internal predictions/expectations?"

• Steve: "Yes. It was obvious that the reach of 16- materials for CSER and ‘O’ Level would continue to rise throughout the 70s."

"There was a revised (second) edition of pupil books 1 and 2 produced, as the subject was rapidly evolved over the course of the 70s. Was a revised version of book 3 produced? I haven’t been able to find proof of existence, and I wondered if that was because either there wasn’t a need because it was relatively ‘new’ compared to books 1 & ?  If the project hadn't been sold to Acorn in 1983  would it eventually have happened?"

• Steve: "There was no revision of Book 3 for the reasons you suggest. Whether a revision would have been needed eventually is an interesting question. Probably!!"

"The IRIS pupil book came out approximately September 1976.   I haven’t been able to find a copy for love nor money! How popular was it?"

• Steve "It was popular with schools who had reliable and regular access to an ICL 1900 Series computer. As mentioned above these were often located in local government, polytechnics, universities and larger colleges. Some local companies also helped their local schools with access. IRIS was predicated on access to the ICL FIND software (File Interrogation Nineteen Hundred). Some good work was done on interrogation of census data using this software (NDP CAL)."

"ICLs core business was mainframes and minicomputers. With the boom of micros in the late 1970s , was this a concern to the CES project? I wondered because secondary computing was moving away from the types of computer that were ICLs core business. Was this even an issue? Would it have been a conflict of interest if CES materials were adapted to use other manufacturers microcomputers? (I know some students and teachers wrote CESIL interpreters for the PET and such like)."

• Steve: "The boom of microcomputers in schools didn’t start until the Micros in Schools project began in 1981. Previously there were some Commodore PETs, some RM 380Zs and some home made kit but the real boom came with the BBC Micro in 1981. So the microcomputer boom wasn’t much of an issue in the 1970s. Around 1980 thought was being given in ICL as to whether ICL should have a small machine available for schools (the machines they were selling to colleges were far too expensive for schools to even consider). The ICL 2903 was a small business machine which was versioned for small colleges supporting 16 on-line terminals running BACIC. But this was too expensive for schools. They did look at a microcomputer from Denmark (I think) called the COMET but decided that this would be too difficult to manufacture and distribute using the existing ICL sales network.

• The ICL-CES materials themselves didn’t depend on the availability of ICL kit. Basic became universal in education on a wide range of machines and even the CESIL language had interpreters on a range of non-ICL kit. So there was never a conflict of interest. I don’t think that ICL ever thought that schools’ use of ICL-CES publications would materially affect the sales of their powerful mainframe computers."

"What was your highlight of working on the project?   (and if you don’t mind, what was

perhaps the least enjoyable thing while you were there?)"

• Steve: "Being at the heart of exciting curriculum development at a national level!

• Initially, having to travel to an office in London to write materials that could be written

absolutely anywhere!! This is why we managed to get the project re-located to Reading closer to where the team members lived!

"A follow up question – how did you produce the books? Typewriter? Then sent to

another department for adding pictures etc? Interested to know about the process."

• Steve:  "The initial pilot materials for the trial schools were typed on A4 pages. Each chapter was punched and held together with an Acco clip. There weren’t many illustrations at that stage. After the trials, the script was re-written and/or edited and sent to ICL Letchworth for typesetting. The proofs came back to us as output from a line printer all in capital letters with embedded codes to indicate what was really a capital letter, or italics, bold, new paragraphs, indentations etc etc. It made proof reading quite tedious!!! After proof reading and marking up on the line printer output, it all went back to Letchworth for editing. They then produced the text as page proofs looking somewhat like the output in the final printed book. But it was all in long strips which we had then to assemble into page-sized pages, leaving space where we would have illustrations, diagrams etc. We sourced most of the images and hand- wrote the coding sheets that would appear in the book (or Teacher’s Guide). Once the pages were all assembled it all went back to Letchworth who would produce a proof copy of the book. This was proof read again by us and sent back to Letchworth. If there were significant changes at this late stage we would get another proof to check just of that section. Eventually, we agreed to sign off the material and Letchworth set the presses rolling. We crossed our fingers!!! An interesting tip on proof reading we received from Letchworth was to read the proof backwards. That was you don’t miss minor errors that otherwise the brain might miss when reading normally!"

"As you mentioned, you left to go to the Derbyshire LEA in 1981.  Was this another opportunity that couldn't be passed up?"

• Steve: "I always said that I would not stay with ICL-CES for ever and would probably return to teaching which I loved. In the early 1980s LEAs started to appoint Computer Education Advisers and this seemed a good opportunity to get back closer to schools. Derbyshire was one of the first and I was fortunate to be appointed."

A big thanks to Steve for answering my questions and giving some details from the inside of the CES project! 👏👏