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Chris sent two boxes of valves to the museum in 2020 his interest in valves began at age ∼ 14, in 1954, because of his parent's radio.

The radio was a 1935 Cossor Model 358 4-valve mains radio a TRF with reaction control. It worked splendidly during the day but at night, because of anomalous propagation from the continent, was less impressive. It also had an unnerving habit of making sudden and deafening screaming noises. These could be silenced by thumping the case near the LH rear corner but would always return later. He advised his parents that the screaming could be prevented by replacing one of the valves but they didnt believe him and bought another radio. He was then given the Cossor. After replacing the MSPen valve V2, kindly donated by a neighbour who had once owned a radio shop, the Cossor was restored and worked for years. At night it was slightly better than the new radio because of the extra selectivity afforded by the reaction control.

He drifted into tinkering with other peoples radio sets - mainly belonging to relatives and acquired a few valves. Later, at university in Manchester, he found that ancient TVs could be bought for a few pounds in junk shops and sold on to other students after fixing some fairly simple faults. Often just changing a few valves would do it. This provided much needed extra cash. The course included lectures from a retired Naval Commander on valve technology and circuit design which came in useful for the TV work. However it was clear that the future did not lie with valves. Transistors packed individually in cardboard boxes marked somewhat ironically valve electronic were already common.

In this way he collected a big box of old valves which sat in the loft for many years gathering dust until they arrived at the museum.