Engineering and Technology Articles | Gerald Bratley Archives -

60 Years Improving Communication, Then Phones Went Off

17 August 2026 by Gerald Bratley MCIEx

There is an odd contradiction at the heart of modern life. We spent 60 years improving communication, then we turned the phones off. Not literally, of course. The devices are everywhere: on restaurant tables, beside beds, in meetings and in the hands of people crossing roads. Yet the ordinary expectation that one person may telephone another, speak directly and settle a matter has quietly been withdrawn.

For those of us who began working when international contact meant a trunk call, a telex, an air letter or an expensive cable, this is more than nostalgia. It is a question of what communication is for. We have gained speed, volume and reach. We have also, in many organisations, lost the direct human exchange that creates trust, resolves ambiguity and makes responsibility difficult to evade.

Engineering Books for General Readers That Matter

16 August 2026 by Gerald Bratley MCIEx

A bridge closure, a delayed train, an electricity outage or a recalled motor car can suddenly remind us that modern life rests on engineering. Yet the systems concerned are usually invisible when they work properly. Engineering books for general readers are valuable because they bring those systems into view without requiring the reader to become a specialist.

The best of them do more than explain how a turbine turns, a battery stores energy or a bridge carries weight. They show how decisions are made, where compromises arise, why apparently sensible projects fail and why technical progress rarely arrives without costs. For readers interested in industry, public policy, transport or Britain’s economic future, that wider perspective is often more useful than a catalogue of inventions.

Technology Change Over a Lifetime: What We Gain

26 July 2026 by Gerald Bratley MCIEx

The most striking feature of technology change over a lifetime is not that machines have become faster. It is that activities once requiring patience, specialist knowledge and several people can now be performed, often imperfectly, by one person with a telephone in his pocket. For someone who began work when a long-distance call had to be booked, export papers were typed in multiple copies and a wrong figure could mean starting a page again, the scale of the alteration is hard to overstate.

There is a temptation to treat this as a simple march of progress. Much has plainly improved. Communication is quicker, information is more widely available and many formerly laborious tasks are cheaper. Yet every gain brings a different dependency. The question is not whether technology is good or bad. It is whether we remain capable of judging when it helps, when it misleads and when an older, slower method is the wiser one.

Engineer or Part Fitter?

19 June 202619 June 2026 by Gerald Bratley MCIEx

What We Lost When Repair Became Replacement During much of the twentieth century, an engineer or skilled technician was expected to understand how a machine worked. When something failed, the first question was not necessarily, “Which new unit shall we order?” It was, “What has gone wrong, and can it be repaired?” Mechanics, electricians, instrument … Read more