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Telephone history: Telephone Service in Birmingham

Yes Morturn, pressing the button 'earthed' the line which let the exchange know which party was calling for billing purposes. Party lines were to solve the problem of shortage of lines in the cable and was only a temporary measure until more pairs were available I was an engineer for 34 years and still remember the problems caused when the party line got 'reversed' during maintenance. Eric
 
cookie273uk said:
Yes Morturn, pressing the button 'earthed' the line which let the exchange know which party was calling for billing purposes. Party lines were to solve the problem of shortage of lines in the cable and was only a temporary measure until more pairs were available I was an engineer for 34 years and still remember the problems caused when the party line got 'reversed' during maintenance. Eric
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When I moved into my first flat in 1965, I had a party line shared with my neighbour across the landing. On two occasions, I remember having to report a fault when the lines got crossed over. My neighbour was not so pubic spirited and just told his friends to ring my number to get through to him! I always wondered what the button to get a line actually did so thanks Cookie for telling me that it earthed the line. Somehow pressing the button caused Radio 4 to play on my phone.
 
Now this is not a picture of a chap up a pole in Birmingham, but there has been discussion on some threads of telegraph poles, and also Health and Safety.

For those ex GPO, Post Office Telephones and BT this the way it is today

132444
 
The top 2 steps are called 'working steps' to place your feet whilst carrying out maintenance, those below are called 'climbing steps' for obvious reasons and start 15 feet from ground level. I seemed to live up poles in my first few years from 25 foot 'lights' to 50 foot 'stouts', (now nearly all gone to be replaced by underground cables). I would not fancy climbing steel poles in a storm, a perfect lightning conductor! They have just put new poles in Cooks Lane near to me and they are still wood, have not seen a steel pole, cannot really see the point off them. Eric
 
Hi.

Does anyone remember the explosion in the basement of Telephone House in the
early 1960s. I worked in the bank on the opposite corner of Lionel Street at the time,
and we were 'evacuated' for a short while to the Colmore Row branch

Incidentally, I've got a wooden pole in my front garden. It must be getting on a bit, but
when I asked a BT engineer how old it is he didn't know. Apparently there aren't any markings
on it giving its age.

It leans a bit, there is an absolute mass of cables on it including mains electricity
distribution, and there are no steps.
BT access it using a cherrypicker.

Kind regards
Dave
 
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Dave89, 10 feet from the 'butt' of the pole,( that would be little above eye level from a pole in the ground) are engraved the height of the pole, once in feet now in metres, the letter L,M or S (light, medium or stout) and the date it was made/creosoted, usually about the date it was erected. When they are erected on some ones property PO Telephones/BT normally paid an annual small rent. Because they are creosoted under pressure they have a very long life, 60 years and longer. Eric
 
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Remember telephone tables/seats ? These seem to have a nice padded seat with handy phone book storage compartments. We never had the luxury of one. In our house it meant sitting on the stairs in a cold, unheated and draughty hallway. Probably a ploy to keep down phone bills ! Viv.

132470
 
Astoness said:
we had a party line during the 60s but not for very long as it was not private...if you were the nosey type you could listen in to the other persons calls

lyn
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doris day and rock hudson had same trouble in pillow talk. i think
 
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the bt would not climb a pole in my field last time i had probs.they said it was rotten,and had to get the heavy gang in to replace it. h&s
 
Dialing the 'wrong' number to get the 'right' person on a party line reminds me of the small model telephone system in the Museum of Science and Industry in Newhall Street. There was a glass-fronted cabinet that let you watch the works and on either side was a telephone. A small notice by each telephone told you what number to dial, say 639. Inevitably someone would pick up that phone and call out to their companion standing by the other telephone, "My number is 639, what's yours?", i.e. exactly the same way as a 'real' system works, but not the display model!
Incidently Kidderminster Railway Museum has a nice little working exchange but here you DO have to ask "What's your number?"!
 
Spargone said:
Dialing the 'wrong' number to get the 'right' person on a party line reminds me of the small model telephone system in the Museum of Science and Industry in Newhall Street. There was a glass-fronted cabinet that let you watch the works and on either side was a telephone. A small notice by each telephone told you what number to dial, say 639. Inevitably someone would pick up that phone and call out to their companion standing by the other telephone, "My number is 639, what's yours?", i.e. exactly the same way as a 'real' system works, but not the display model!
Incidently Kidderminster Railway Museum has a nice little working exchange but here you DO have to ask "What's your number?"!
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I too remember that display. It was right next to the fox and rabbit game, made from ex post office telephone parts.



I have seen and had a play with he Kidderminster set up and there is also a good one at Avoncroft museum.
 
Morturn said:
I too remember that display. It was right next to the fox and rabbit game, made from ex post office telephone parts.
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We called it 'Fox and Geese', one fox that could go forward and back and four geese that could only advance. There was a control knob that slid in a 'St Andrews cross' cut-out. Wasn't there a futuristic counter display across the gangway that used Dekatron tubes, a neon-like glow that stepped around a ring of electrodes?
 
Some great pics Viv and on lots of threads, keep 'em coming.
Interesting Caption to pic 3. "Hullo Girls"? Do people say this in Brum or is it Hello as I always thought it to be or if you're a southerner Hallo.
 
Telegraph Boys, young lads who delivered telegrams on their bikes with a little saddle bag on the back. One of those jobs that young boys aspired to, like engine driving, to which one's parents said, "Oh no your not!"
 
Some early telephone work in Birmingham...
oldMohawk said:
The tag with the photo (from shoothill) reads 'laying telephone wires in Colmore Row' and some youngsters of the early 1900s seem interested in the work. The girl in the centre appears to have a basket suspended in front of her, the man standing in the hole has pliers held in his belt and the cable looks substantial. That office building at No 88 does not appear to be there today ... maybe it isn't Colmore Row.
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oldMohawk said:
Some early telephone work in Birmingham...
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Whenever I see a cable being laid I am reminded of a tale told me by a senior engineer at MTRHQ dating from when he had just joined the Post Office. It had been decided that the mouth of a harbour in Cardiff was to be spanned by an underwater cable which was duly ordered up. An 'old timer' boss looked at the drum and said "We will need to get a number [x] bar (the largest diameter in the rate book [PO stores catalogue])". The youngsters, fresh out of college with their diplomas, challenged this and said it was 'all a matter of bending moments' and the like so set out to calculate the required bar diameter. Referring their result to the rate book they were surprised to find that the boss had been correct and wanted to know how he had anticipated the answer. He said, "Because it is the biggest bl***y bar that will fit the hole!"
 
Hi Susie, my dad was the senior chief suoervisor ( night staff) at Telephone House Birmingham until the ’s when he returned As I recall his responsibilities included Hill Street and Selly Oak exchanges and the secret Anchor exchange built as part of Cold War defence action .Although I never knew about that from him Only fo7nd out about it by doing recent historical research . He obviously valued the Official Secrets Act. From what I remember the only other GPO Telephones senior chief supervisor post in the country was in London and held by a woman who was over daytime staff , This I have always thought points to the GPO Telephones being somewhat of a progressive equal ops employer in the 1960’s.
 
Student said:
This I have always thought points to the GPO Telephones being somewhat of a progressive equal ops employer in the 1960’s.
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A curious definition of 'equal opportunities' I would have thought! As a rule women didn't operate switchboards on the night-shifts, (old-fashioned chivalry, meaning that 'girls' didn't have to be out on the streets outside daylight hours?).
I would have expected Birmingham, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Liverpool and Manchester to have had equivalent managerial posts, London might possibly have had more. Certainly in the era of 'regionalisation' when we had some doubts as to what 'HQ' wanted us to do we would often confer with our equivalent officers in other regions, using 'unofficial channels'!
 
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