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"In the early 1980s an international phone call sounded quite different from today. Even if the subs making the call weren't paying, calling overseas was still quite an event for a lot of people, so on hearing: 'This is the United Kingdom calling. Will you accept...' we would hear squeals of delight...!" |
"I think we had our photo taken because we were about to take part in the Thames Telethon, at the Connaught Rooms in Covent Garden. Actually, we might have already done it, as I remember wearing a British Telecom T-shirt on the day. My claim to fame is that I sat between Windsor Davies and Martin Clunes (!) At the end of the programme, we were made to stand on the desks and sing 'I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing' while the camera panned along us!" - Andrew Roberts.
The Telsts (Telephonists)
Hazel Brewer
"Wood Street 1 was still in the old building and was a T-shaped room. There were divisional desks located at all three extremities. During the early part of the day it was practice to fill the top bar of the T first, with the overspill of staff and training groups using the upright part of the T later in the day. Later, when Wren House was emptying out we were hot seating."
"Both Wood Street and Faraday had recreation rooms with billiard tables, darts and table-tennis. Wood 1 was not the only exchange to have a bar. Faraday also had one in the 5th floor restaurant."
The Testing Telephonist (TT)
"The TT was the Testing Telephonist in the switchroom. All faults with equipment and circuits were reported to us, the TT on duty and we would test them to see if we found the same. Once the fault was ascertained it was then reported to the switchroom engineers or the circuitry wallahs, depending what the fault was. Outstanding faults were brought forward and entered in red and were urged for report on at least a daily basis until the problem was resolved. In addition, the night staff did a lamp-test over the weekends."
Andrew Roberts
...Joins the Headsets
"My first day at Wood Street 1 (in 1981) will stay with me forever. We had to wait outside the switchroom with our headsets on, tied neatly around our waists, and our pencils at the ready. Then the door opened and we filed in. My knees were knocking. My supervisor that day was Flo Hillyer, who sat behind me while I took my first call, to Iran. How was I to know it was a fraudulent call? The guy sounded genuine to me. The pay-on-answer call box he was using didn't send any pips when I plugged into the circuit, so I thought it was a landline."
Andrew explains why... "A common ploy to get a free call from a POA (Pay On Answer) box in those days was to be abusive to the international operator, after we had stopped the pips, in the hope that we would disconnect first. If we did, the caller could then dial 105/107 and no tell-tale pips would be heard."
"Needless to say, the plugs were pulled a couple of minutes into the call, and I was devastated. I thought I would have to pay the money back. I cannot believe that it wasn't standard practice in those days to call anybody back to check they really were on the number they had just given. But, amazingly, most people didn't abuse it and the system worked. I decided I would come back to work the next day after all and things did eventually become easier. Everybody was very nice to me, although I was ribbed mercilessly about my West Country accent. Whenever I answered a call, I'd hear a chorus of 'Internaaaational Serrvice' from my colleagues alongside me. Oh what cheeky scamps they all were."
Rules & Regs
"My memories of Wood Street are mostly happy, but whenever I see old, black and white photos of switchrooms from the 1940s, I'm always struck by how disciplined it looks. Nobody ever slouched, and there always seemed to be one supervisor for every five or six telsts. The supervisors always had proper deportment of course, hands behind their backs."
"What a contrast to the 1980s. At weekends, when there were fewer supervisors around, some telsts would swing round and round on their chairs pretending to be Wonder Woman. Lieutenant Uhura was another favourite!"
"The rules and regulations seemed rather petty, but Gladys 'TI' Cambrey was a really kind lady, always ready with the Training Instructions to offer help and guidance. Unlike some supervisors, she wouldn't undermine you if you had a difficult sub. There was nothing worse, having said no to a sub's outrageous demands, than a supervisor telling him (usually a male, unfortunately) he had been speaking to a trainee, authorising a huge refund, and handing the call back to you."
[The official name for TIs was Telecommunication Instructions, but they were frequently used as training aids.]
The Calls
"In the early 1980s an international phone call sounded quite different from today. Even if the subs making the call weren't paying, calling overseas was still quite an event for a lot of people, so on hearing: "This is the United Kingdom calling. Will you accept..." we would hear squeals of delight. While we were still saying, 'Will you pay for the call?' they would be shouting, 'Yes! Yes!' like Meg Ryan. And that was just the Divvies sitting in the middle of the room(!)"
"Now, today when I call my brother in Australia the set-up time is very fast, and the line is so clear that he sounds as though he's only upstairs. By comparison, what was once an extraordinary event has become ordinary."
"Early shifts (from 8.00am) were great. Because of the time difference, most calls at the beginning of an early shift would be to Australia and New Zealand. The subs would always be in a good mood and those calls would be a pleasure. After selecting the correct jack, pushing the Dial key forward and hitting 61 for Australia, 2 for Sydney, etc on the keysender, there would be a brief pause, then we would hear the hiss of an international line, followed by ring tone, or whatever. When the call was answered, we'd hear a sort of "pip-pip" noise. I'm not sure why it was there, but it added to the sense of occasion. In those days it really felt like we were playing a part in bringing people together. That felt nice."
[The "pip-pip" noises were part of the signalling system used on these international routes]
Ticket Cab Duty
"The ticket cab duty involved a telst going round the switchroom periodically to collect the ISOCC tickets from the backs of chairs. While sorting the tickets - bear in mind that the exchange was really busy - I came across one with no details on the front, but on the back was a pencil drawing of a horse's head. It was beautiful and it must have taken a long time to draw, but some telst had managed to avoid the wrath of supervisors and divvies alike while he/she was doing no work at all. I have no idea who did it, but it was stunning."
Talking Proper
"I love to hear those operators with beautiful received pronunciation in the old newsreels and wonder if my predecessors really did have to 'speak proper'? Did they pronounce five and nine as 'fife' and 'niner'? Not forgetting 'thrrree'."
"By the time I'd joined, it didn't seem to matter what accent we had as long as we grouped numbers correctly:
i.e. 222 0110 would be "two, double two, oh one, one oh NOT triple two zero, double one zero!"
"I think correct diction had all but disappeared by the 1980s. I had a pretty strong West Country accent at the time, but most of my colleagues had this appalling accent called Lahndon or summink, and they didn't arf speak funny. 'What numbah was you diallin'?' Everybody knows it should've been 'What numberr were you dialling, me 'ansome? Proper job'."
The Divvies (Divisional Supervisors)
Helga was a telephonist in Faraday 2A who was promoted to ASR at Wood Street.
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Some supervisors were better at handling 'difficult' subs than others. Dear old Helga Hindler was the best one. She'd never stoop to their level, but she would often unintentionally wind them up even more because of her German accent. While they ranted and raved she would hold the handset away from her head, then after a pause she would continue, "Mr Smith...." She deserves a medal. |
"It took me a while to realise that she was very nice beneath that hard exterior. She once stood behind me while I was listening to Abracadabra [by the Steve Miller Band] on Dial-a-Disc, but I was so "busy" enjoying the record that I didn't notice her. I became aware of her presence only when she leaned forward and started to blow on the lights. I immediately took the hint, cleared down from the offending call and with my face burning I took some lights. Nothing more was said about it. Now that, for me, was far more effective management. Some of the other divvies would have issued a written warning instead, thereby creating much resentment between telst and divvie."
The Subs
"I connected a sub who complained about not getting any native English speakers. I would have liked to have handed him over to Maggie Hill (pure Glaswegian) but said instead, 'What do you expect? You have come through to an International exchange.'."
"When I was being retrained, on the first session with live traffic a chatty male customer asked me if I was new at the job to which I replied, 'No, I’m a hardened operator using new technology.', which silenced him completely."
"There was a subscriber who used to frequently dial 105/107, begin normally and then scream abuse at you if you couldn't connect him straight away? The tirade of abuse would be so sudden and unexpected that it really was very upsetting if you'd never spoken to him before."
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"He gave me such a fright on one occasion that I flung my brand new Auralite headset on to the keyshelf and broke the voice tube. On the older black, trumpet-mouthpiece headsets, he didn't seem as menacing, but with the Auralite headsets we could alter the volume and I liked mine loud. This often made him sound like he was inside my head!" |
"This sub was a real nuisance who caused enormous upset in the exchange."
References
Thanks to Hazel Brewer, Andrew Roberts and Sally Passmore.
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