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Wren House: "We did get calls through during hostilities and played a minor role in the Vulcan attacks on Stanley airport." |
The Radio Link
While circuits to Pakistan and India were benefitting from BT's largesse some were still neglected as a matter of (unofficial) policy. With limited resources it was better to push at half open doors than those which were much harder to open. Fewer customers ended up being disappointed. Even at this late stage some routes were still operated only via high frequency radio. The last of these was to Port Stanley in the Falkland Islands where Cable & Wireless operated a twice daily schedule (two hours in the afternoon and two hours in the evening) to Wren House, shuffling the few calls required to and fro as efficiently as the equipment permitted. In January 1982 the call counts to Stanley (as it was always known) began to rise, and Malcolm Knight (the then manager of Wren) gave his opposite number in Stanley a call and agreed a longer daily schedule. Over the following weeks this became a regular occurrence, the call demand just kept on rising until, in spite of engineering advice that sunspots would affect service at certain times of the day, it became a 24 hours a day service. Unfortunately no one thought to enquire as to why the demand for calls had risen ten fold.
The Start of the Hostilities
All became clear when staff left the exchange on 2nd April 1982 and found the evening newspapers proclaiming the Argentine invasion. The increase in call numbers was unlikely to be coincidence but a plausible explanation for it has never been revealed. Within hours of the invasion, the circuit to Stanley was lost. However a Spanish speaking English telephonist (Jennifer Tall) was given the job of monitoring the frequency and it wasn't long before it became live again. The Stanley aerial had been redirected to Beunos Aires and the 'Argies' could be heard, albeit faintly with the aerial pointing away from the UK, making arrangements to set up a civilian government on the Falklands. Postage stamps, currency, legal papers etc., were being ordered for delivery. Meanwhile the remainder of Wren House was under siege with requests for call connections from worried relatives and others, none of which could be actioned. They were merely added to a waiting list.
Maintaining Communications
This went on for a week or two when one evening, after working late, Chris James (the night staff manager) and Malcolm Knight found themselves crossing Blackfriars Bridge on their way home only to be accosted by a breathless telephonist who had run after them yelling "The Argies want to speak to you." So they ran back to Wren House to hear the Argentine authorities announce that as part of their setting up of a civilian government, they wanted to restore full telephone service. A 'one for you, one for us' call schedule was rapidly set up and the Wren House staff started to work their way through their waiting list. Unfortunately and unknown to the staff in London, most of the people at the head of the list were journalists to which the Argentines responded angrily. After that the service became one way. Stanley to London only. Because the incoming calls were so important to the intended recipients, Wren House staff went out of their way to ensure connection. In some cases, prolonged 'no replies' were solved by putting out SOSs over BBC local radio stations.
Winning the War
While all this was going on, Britain was still at war with its Naval Task Force being attacked by enemy aircraft. One afternoon a message came through to the Wren House traffic office from the Ministry of Defence asking if it was possible to cut off all communications with the Ascension Islands (a remote British Island in the Atlantic supporting a US airforce base). The answer was yes and the deed was done.
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Malcolm Knight who made the arrangements had family connections with the MoD and was able to correctly guess that a Vulcan bomber was going to make the long hop down to Stanley overnight. |
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Next day the MoD thanked the Wren House staff for their assistance and said that the communication blackout could be lifted. |
The Conclusion
After the battle for the Falklands was won, a representative operator from Stanley's small telephone exchange was flown to London to join in the victory celebrations. When he was shown around Wren House he revealed that while he and other staff were working with the UK operators, machine guns were held against their backs. Following the war a satellite link was very hastily provided for Stanley and so the very last high frequency radio circuit serving UK customers was closed down in 1983.
Page last updated 19th September 2012. Checked May 2021.
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