"Everything can be traced to that point" - the industrial history of the Lea Valley is explored in a new book (From East London and West Essex Guardian Series)

"Everything can be traced to that point" - the industrial history of the Lea Valley is explored in a new book

11:13am Friday 23rd September 2011 in Highlights By George Nott

Next year, the world will fix its attention on east London as athletes battle for gold at the 2012 Olympics. From Enfield to Egypt, spectators will tune in their TV sets to see who can run fastest, throw furthest and perform without fault.

Few will know, that just a javelin’s throw from the finishing line is the place that made this mass spectatorship possible. The place that the computer, television, and mobile phone can all trace their origins to – the Lea Valley.

“Historians have missed it but it’s an incredible place,” explains Jim Lewis, author of a new book examining the importance of the region, Regeneration and Innovation: Invention and Reinvention in the Lea Valley.

“As an electrical engineer I do understand the significance of a certain invention where academics would miss it.”

In 1904, after numerous failed efforts, it was here Professor Ambrose Fleming registered his patent for the diode valve – the world’s thermionic device.

Jim had better explain: “Everything can be traced to that point; space travel, computers, the internet, whatever you like, it all comes back to that.”

Thirty-two years later, in 1936, the world’s first high-definition public service television broadcast was transmitted by the BBC from the crest of the Lea Valley’s western slopes.

“When we have the Olympics and people are sitting watching in New York and Tokyo – the technical ability to do that came from the same area,” says Jim. “It was a crucible of technological firsts.”

Needless to say, Jim has a real passion for the area. He once worked at Thorn EMI Ferguson as an engineer and since retirement has written seven books on the industrial area.

“When you work in an area you don’t always know what’s going on just outside,” he says.

“Nobody had really looked at the Lea Valley area as a whole. I research archives after hearing odd bits in articles – I feel like a detective.

“I appear to wake people up to the historical significance of the region.”

Along with his book Jim’s expertise has been put to good use elsewhere – he is regularly consulted by leading architect Sir Terry Farrell.

“It is people like Jim who keep alive the magic of the place,” says Sir Terry, designer of the modern Charing Cross Station and MI6 HQ in Vauxhall. “He is a traveller in that long tradition of indefatigable British explorers, journeying intellectually into unknown yet fascinating territory.

“Out of the glorious and chaotic metropolis which is London, Jim has discovered one of the great wonders of London – the extraordinairy history of the Lea Valley.”

The new book covers the industrial landscape of the area, the inventions that were born there and the people behind the world-changing discoveries.

“I see it like an endless Olympic relay, where the baton of technological knowledge is passed from generation to generation.

“It’s a great feeling when I speak to local people and make them feel proud of their roots,” explains Jim.

“Some will have lived here all their lives and never known the history.

“Perhaps sometime in the future the region will no longer be Britain’s best kept secret.”

Regeneration and Innovation: Invention and Reinvention in the Lea Valley by Jim Lewis is available now from www.libripublishing.co.uk and all good book shops.

Readers of the Enfield Independent can buy the book at a reduced price of £8.50 including p+p (a saving of £4.49) by entering the code word Independent when ordering.