"Excuse me I oversaw the opening of this building. It was built using British Labour and skills with the money of the British People who paid for it with their taxes. It belongs to them and always will. Margeret Thatcher took it from them and gave it to you when it was not hers to give"
From the Nanny State Made Me. Stuart Maconie. Ebury Press 2020
Tony Benn said this to a besuited PR man who interupted an interview between Stuart Maconie and Tony Benn. The PR man tried in vain to tell Tony Benn that it was not the GPO Tower, but the BT Tower. I love the Post Office Tower, I have never said "look there is the BT Tower" or "Oh look there is The British Telecom Tower. To me it will always be the Post Office Tower. I saw it once in the 1970s (A School Trip) and looking up at it was mind blowing. It looked like the future...and still does (just not in a BT way)
Operational opening by Harold Wilson in 1965 and then opened to the public in 1966 by Tony Benn and Billy Butlin. The Tower was designed by the Architects at the Ministry of Public Buildings and Works (I love that term) Eric Bedford and G. R. Yeats. The location of the Tower was designated an official secret due to the the fact it transmitted secret military and govenment data to other transmitters round the country.
The rotating restaurant was eventually closed to the public for security reasons in 1980 and public access to the building ceased in 1981. The Tower has appeared in many Films and TV programs a couple of personal favs is towards the end of the film Smashing Time, set in the GPO Tower revolving restaurant and of course the mighty Kitten Kong from the Goodies.
