online since 19th August 1997
Light Straw looks back at the history of the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN), exchanges, telephones, vehicle fleets, and its organisational structure, and attempts to encapsulate the wonderment of bygone eras of the Post Office/GPO/Britsh Telecom, and Openreach.
Enter the world of operator connected calls, Subscriber Trunk Dialling, Strowger switching and much more...
Visit the Post Office Tower; the Telephone Managers' Office; explore the Telecoms Engineering Centre; and learn about the last two TXE4s to be taken out of service. Tour Bletchley Park where GPO equipment helped to crack the German wartime codes.
Includes GPO Clock Systems.
Lightstraw domain derivations are copyright 1997-2024 and are edited by John Chenery. These include the domains MyGPOFamily, and Fynevue (Chronicals). The GPO/Clocksystems pages are authored by Simon Taylor. All domains here are operated with an SSL security (padlock) certificate, and should default to https:// for safe data exchange/browsing.
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Designed, compiled and published by John Chenery © 1997 - 2024 with additions from contributors.
Fynevue Chronicles: Relocated pages
Faded memories, Butlin's Clacton, Rail infrastructure, and Banking topics have all moved to Fynevue.
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