A FORMER employee has been sharing memories of working at a satellite station near Hereford.

BT’s main satellite earth station, Madley Communications Centre, has dominated the skyline in the Herefordshire village for nearly 45 years.

The centre has played a central role in worldwide broadcasts of some of the most dramatic events of the past four decades.

These include the fall of the Berlin Wall; the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales, and the 2017 Hurricane Irma in the Caribbean.

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Today it handles thousands of telephone calls, data, internet and television links, specially tailored business services and a range of other communications every day to almost every country in the world.

Robert Williams worked there for 24 years from 1980 to 2004 and remembers his time fondly.

He said: “I have many great memories of the place, and I am still in touch with a lot of people from there. It was like one big family; sometimes we wouldn’t get on, like any family, but we always stuck together.”

He recalls the time the site drew complaints from a nearby village.

He said: “I remember one occasion when we had visiting contractors working on one of the dishes.

“Unfortunately, we forgot to tell them to watch their language when they were working on it.

“With the dish nearest Kingstone, any words or even expletives spoken louder than a whisper could be heard all the way across the village because of the reverb from the dish.”

Madley was originally built to provide expansion for BT’s inaugural satellite earth station at Goonhilly in Cornwall.

The station held a series of events in 2018 to celebrate 40 years since the first transmission at the site.

Speaking at the time a spokesperson for the centre, said: “We’re proud of the central role that Madley plays in satellite communications for BT and our customers, as well as for the UK as a whole.

“We’re excited about the future for the site, in a world where international communications has never been more important.”