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In October 1969 the Post Office ceased to be a government department and as a result, the GPO (also known as Post Office Telephone at this time) became Post Office Telecommunications, under the Post Office Corporation – a now nationalised industry. This nationalisation of the Post Office also saw another division emerge in the form of the Post Office Services [that is, delivering letters and parcels as Royal Mail, and Giro banking, etc., etc.], which had a separate Head Quarters from Post Office Telecommunications.

This all continued until 1980, when Post Office Telecommunications became British Telcom, although it remained part of the Post Office. In 1981 though, British Telecom became an entirely separate entity and became known as British Telecommunications, trading as British Telecom.

It must also be noted, that at this point the whole business of telecommunications was liberalised – meaning that other companies started to emerge in the field and challenged British Telcom’s services and products.

In 1984, the Government privatised the corporation and it became known at British Telecommunications plc, with the Government retaining the majority shareholding.

It wasn’t until the early 1990s that the Government sold off the majority of it’s shareholding and to bring British Telcom into competition with the global market, it became BT, the new trading name of British Telecommunications plc – which it remains to this day.

mascher wrote:The wooden load floor van was available for export only according to the BMC body service parts list. Commercial vehicles were taxed at a lower rate in many countries. It's likely that BMC provided the wooden load floor van to take advantage of the tax break as they also provided a rear seat kit that could be used to convert the van into an estate. The local dealer would provide the side windows. There is one here in Seattle that spent most of it's life in Ecuador.

Kelley