This is an extract from Tony Benn’s diaries from his time as Postmaster General (then a cabinet position in UK government) and his relationship with Henry Tilling (his civil service private secretary) and the application of technology in the civil service. It’s fair to say there is a lot going on, not least the aparent pettiness on both sides. You might also wonder what a ‘quinillion’ is.

Friday 7 May 1956

Tilling has been promoted to head of Organisation and Methods Branch and he wrote me this assessment of my period as PMG to mark the occasion.

A new era was opened when Mr Anthony Wedgwood Ben Postmaster General in October 1964. Mr Benn, young became and forward-looking, was determined that the Post Office should become a science-based industry. He applied this principle not only to his Department's services but also to his own post, and at the General Election i n April 1969, the ancient office of Postmaster General was abolished and a ‘Rapidec’ Mark 9 computer as installed in Rom Gl at Post Office Headquarters in St Martin's-le-Grand.

Meanwhile, the Post Office had undergone rapid expansion and change. It capital investment rose to £ quinillions annualy as its Headquarters, Regional Headquarters and local Telephone Area and Head Offices were all replaced by computers of increasing size and complexity. All the staff of these offices were retained as programmers, translating their previous work into binary code for the computers. Indeed, so great was the programming program that the staff of the GPO had increased to over a million by 1 January 1984: 500,000 programmers and 500,000 engineers to tend the computers. Al the staff had been transferred to the Central Onganisation and Methods Branch on temporary promotion.

At their head was Sir Henry Tilling, GCB, who had been appointed head of the Central Organisation and Methods Branch soon after Mr Wedgwood Benn became Postmaster General, and these revolutionary changes had been made under his baleful supervision. In an age dominated by machines, Sir Henry maintained the antiquated principle that machines existed to serve mankind, and, while he remained in office, the Post Office continued to serve the public's needs - unlike the rest of the

Public services which were run entirely for and by computers. Sir Henry, in his Fortress in Stepney, retained not only these out of date principles but also old fashioned habits which marked him as one of an earlier generation of administrators. He had his room heated by a coal fire and his tea served every afternoon from a silver teapot made 200 years before his birth. Needless to say, these unhygienic habits and his backward-looking, humanist-based policies caused resentment and discontent among his staff and the computers, and, when he eventually retired on 24 January, 1984, he was replaced by an Omniscient Mark 5 Computer.

By 1 February, 1985, there was a marked deterioration in the quality of the Post Office services, and with the collapse of the communications network in 1999, the world entered a new dark age, in which the darkness was more profound and prolonged than that which succeeded the the fall of the Roman Empire

Saturday 8 May 1956

I wrote this verse today to celebrate Tilling's departure and promotion.

A PMG's PS named Tilling

To contemplate change was unwilling

He'd detected decay

Since Sir Brian Tuke's day

And the future appeared to him chilling.