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Telephone history: Telephone Service in Birmingham
- Thread starter Aidan
- Start date
Radiorails
master brummie
deleted as it had no connection 
with Birmingham telephones.
with Birmingham telephones.
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cookie273uk
master brummie
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
DavidGrain
master brummie
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.
DavidGrain
master brummie
I was going to say BBC Midland Home Service but I thought there might be one or two people on this forum who would not have known what I was talking about.
wendylee
master brummie
Mmmm that is a very old , dodgy looking pole
Pedrocut
Master Barmmie
Yes I thought the same. It looks like one of OldM's poles with 8 cross bars removed for safety reasons.
DavidGrain
master brummie
I have noticed that new poles are now of steel and no longer have the foot treads at the higher level
cookie273uk
master brummie
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
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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cookie273uk
master brummie
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.
mw0njm.
A Brummie Dude
doris day and rock hudson had same trouble in pillow talk. i think
Radiorails
master brummie
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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?"!
Incidently Kidderminster Railway Museum has a nice little working exchange but here you DO have to ask "What's your number?"!
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.
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?
Automatic telephone system seems to have been introduced in 1931. Viv.
And the “Young People’s Telephone Exhibition” in 1933. Viv.
oldMohawk
gone but not forgotten
Some early telephone work in Birmingham...
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.
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.
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'!