History of Aid Call?

In 1975, Sebastian Fenwick, then aged 23, started Bunch Alarms, the first electronic burglar alarm to be designed specifically for residential properties. The alarms used technology adapted from that used in the music industry and between 1975 and 1980 it became the largest selling domestic alarm system in London and the South East. Many of these alarms are still working today.

On April 1 1980, Aid Call was formed, with its offices in London SW1.  Aid Call used the services of a telephone answering company in North London for its response centre.  The names Medi-lert and Call-Aid were nearly chosen, however Sebastian finally settled on Aid Call due to its position at the beginning of the alphabet!  The company was launched by an article in the Financial Times and was the first of its kind in the world. 

The cost of these early Aid Call alarms was £325 and the first was installed in Warwick.

In 1984 Sebastian introduced Aid Call's most notable personality: Mrs Hope.  Mrs Hope was played by Sylvia Marriott, an actress who had previously appeared in a Bond film and was also the voice of the Dalmation dog Perdita in the Disney film ‘101 Dalmations'.

By 1986 the staff had increased to 5 sales personnel and 2 engineers, the father and son team Mick and Stuart Mulligan who covered the whole of the country, although by this time there were still only around 2000 units in the field.

Sebastian felt that there was no need for Aid Call to operate out of London and decided to move the company to Devon.  Several months were spent changing the chips in the alarms to allow Aid Call's own Response Centre to handle the calls.  For the first few months calls were still being handled in London and Manchester but in April of that year the Response Centre started handling calls.  The chip changes meant that the alarms were coming over to the system one at a time and the operators were able to learn as they went along and procedures were formulated.

Up until 1991 Aid Call had relied on advertising in the Sunday Supplements and the good reputation of the product to increase sales, with less than a £million having been spent on advertising.  Television and radio advertising were tested with a freephone number of 0800 909090 but proved to be expensive and never successful.

In 1992 it was felt that larger, smarter offices were needed in order for the company to continue to expand and so the site in Ashburton was bought and the building of Linhay House.

Sebastian continued as Managing Director of Aid Call until 1992 when he took the role of Non-Executive Chairman and Hugh Risebrow became MD where he remained until the company was bought by Age Concern in 1997.

Tens of thousands of vulnerable people have been helped by the Aid Call Emergency Alarm since its inception in 1980 and there are a multitude of anecdotes which could be recalled: as many about the staff as the clients and not forgetting the dogs that also used to accompany their masters to the office every day!