Around 1995, during their early years of the European Golf Tour, Julie and Eddie had been in talks with Barry Johnson from Carlton TV about building their first broadcast twinset. In conjunction with specialist coachbuilders A Smith of Great Bentley and sales manager John Evans, they built a super-silent 100 kW trailer generator which could be synchronised to their 100 kW super-silent truck-mounted generator that towed it.
The company evolved from here, the fleet gradually expanding by one or two generators a year to the present time. Now the company has over 50 full time support staff and electricians with an extensive resource of freelancers. The transit has been supplanted by a fleet of trucks and equipment from a 36 kW Sprinter van right the way up to the latest 350 kW twinset.
None of this solid growth would have been possible were it not for Julie's back-office dynamism. She was always happy to take a risk or two and was brilliant at predicting what resources the company would need in the coming months and years.
Julie was initially the general manager running everything in the office whilst Eddie was working out on site as an electrician/lighting director. She did all the bookings for crew, hotels, purchasing equipment, the invoicing, took all the day to day phone calls - pretty much everything. She built a crew of home-grown talent as she was a big fan of employing apprentices, sending them to college and training them up on the job. Most of that crew are still with the company today.
Latterly Julie has spent the last seven years pushing the company forward from the front as managing director, progressing the company into the leading broadcast generator supplier it has become.
Julie was diagnosed with cancer of the kidney in 2006. This spread, and despite all the intervening years of treatment she remained stoical and continued to turn up to the office at 6.30 every morning - even her consultants said that 'she was too busy to die'. It is therefore with the greatest sadness that on the 4 May 2015 the office dynamo has finally slowed to rest.
Julie leaves behind her husband Eddie, daughter Sally Wynne, grandson Callum and all her team at Film & TV Services. Julie's funeral will be held at 13:45 on Wednesday 20 May at the Milton Chapel, Chilterns Crematorium, Amersham HP7 0ND. Donations to www.thameshospice.org.uk
(Jim Evans)
