An unusual - probably unique - fitting found on a 1969 Boxford VSL lathe supplied originally to the Post Office Research Station in Dollis Hill London N.W. 2. Although it's entirely possible that the modifications were made in the Post Office workshops, the fact that the front face of the headstock has been machined with a flat section to take the indexing block does hint at genuine Boxford fitment.
Dollis Hill was a centre famous for telecommunications and electronic research and the site where, in 1943 the world's first programmable electronic computer, Colossus Mark 1 was built by Tommy Flowers and his team - this fist machine being followed, in 1944 and 1945, by nine Colossus Mark 2s - all used at Bletchley Park in to assist in decoding German radio signals. Cleverly, Tommy Hill used many standard Post Office components in the computers and would have been assisted in his work by a well-equipped toolroom and machine shop.