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Telephone history: Telephone Service in Birmingham

Alan,

I haven't frequented those since just after I got demobbed. At the opposite end of the scale, there's no market at all for old technical books. Not even the cardboard recycling bins want them here, so I think they will just go in with the household rubbish as we can't burn now before the next heavy rains in October/November.

Pedro,

81s? You mean ECC81s? still only just over £3 each new, I think.

Maurice :cool:
 
Yes Pedrocut, 81's are small round nosed pliers, part of my tool kit I received in 1956, I had to hand all my tools in when I left BT in 1987, I did keep my watch makers eye glass (still have it) and they let me keep my ladders, my van was kept at home because I was on emergency call out, so took the ladders off before returning van, still have them too. Eric
 
Maurice, $8.95 on Ebay...........



sospiri said:
Alan,

I haven't frequented those since just after I got demobbed. At the opposite end of the scale, there's no market at all for old technical books. Not even the cardboard recycling bins want them here, so I think they will just go in with the household rubbish as we can't burn now before the next heavy rains in October/November.

Pedro,

81s? You mean ECC81s? still only just over £3 each new, I think.

Maurice :cool:
Click to expand...
sospiri said:
Alan,

I haven't frequented those since just after I got demobbed. At the opposite end of the scale, there's no market at all for old technical books. Not even the cardboard recycling bins want them here, so I think they will just go in with the household rubbish as we can't burn now before the next heavy rains in October/November.

Pedro,

81s? You mean ECC81s? still only just over £3 each new, I think.

Maurice :cool:
Click to expand...
 
Post 252 mentions the gas explosion at Telephone House on the 4th January 1962. The details are in the thumbnails.

5C5CED0E-8A6F-44F3-86AC-A175D171D395.jpegEAA5BAF4-4DDE-402E-AE9A-A37752E7C6AB.jpeg5AB0879F-A61A-4D1B-9372-071F15713284.jpeg
 
Pedrocut said:
Post 252 mentions the gas explosion at Telephone House on the 4th January 1962. The details are in the thumbnails.

View attachment 145869View attachment 145870View attachment 145871
Click to expand...

Hi,

Many thanks for the newspaper cuttings. The lady was blown through the carpark which was then in the
middle of Newhall Street into that wooden fence which had been erected to enclose the building
works of the GPO Tower which was being built by Tileman's. We all thought she was lucky to survive that,
but I wonder if longer term she recovered?

I worked at the Westminster Bank on the other corner of Lionel Street, and the place reeked of gas,
so we had to evacuate.

We were sheltered for a while by the Midland Bank just up the road on the corner of Great Charles Street,
and then went on to our local head office where we were able to process the morning's clearing.

It all seems a lifetime away now,

Kind regards
Dave
 
November 1938 Birmingham Gazette
“At the third stroke...”
The inauguration was carried out by Major Gilbert Dennison of the Dennison Watch Case Co. Details of the Company and family appear in the thread...

Dennison’s Birmingham's first light switch

I came across this amusing however very dangerous set up in a old copy of Practical Mechanics Magazine, June 1937. Thank the Lord we now have modern Wiring Regulations in place. I am sure this is obvious, but please, don't try this at home!
birminghamhistory.co.uk birminghamhistory.co.uk

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NTC (National Telephone Company) this answers a query I had regarding a building on Alfred Street, Aston.
The building is still there, NT above the door.
 

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brummy-lad said:
NTC (National Telephone Company) this answers a query I had regarding a building on Alfred Street, Aston.
The building is still there, NT above the door.
Click to expand...
Brummy lad,
this post also needs to be on the Alfred Street thread as it solves the question in the thread.
 
Would I be right in assuming the building in the centre of the picture used to be Birmingham D, Lyndon, Repeater Station.
What is it now used for ?


E4D3672B-6C79-4D3D-A435-066DADCB033C.jpeg
 
Pedrocut said:
Would I be right in assuming the building in the centre of the picture used to be Birmingham D, Lyndon, Repeater Station.
What is it now used for ?


View attachment 148385
Click to expand...
Correct. Before I retired in 2001 it was a repair centre for electronic PCBs used within BT PABXs. Presumably public exchange cards too. That was a while ago but what it's used for now, I know not.
 
Going way back, this was the Central Telephone Exchange in 1908. Obviously a female-dominated workplace !

Viv.

80019C9F-9D8D-47D3-BFEE-C3EC58D0CCD7.jpeg
 
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Had forgotten about ‘Dial-a-Disc’ - wasn’t allowed to use it. Did anyone ? Viv.

D3BF6D14-CC5A-4D08-8262-1D2EB3167040.jpeg
Source: British Newspaper Archive


A description from a net search:

“Dial-a-disc was a telephone service provided the the Post Office beginning in the 60's. You simply dialed the number 16 on your telephone and a current 'pop' tune would be played down the line. This tune would be different each day and played from 6pm to 6am and all day on Sundays (cheap rate)”
 
BRITAIN’S famous speaking clock may have been introduced in 1936 but it still keeps perfect time for the 30 million people who use the service each year.

 
I've been reading all the Telephone service forum today and found it very interesting.
I worked for the GPO in the early 70's on Installation, external and internal, in the North Birmingham area. I remember some " hairy " moments up poles and trying to run lines from one side of road to another on your own, making sure no traffic got caught on the line. I'm surprised nobody has mentioned the Social Club in Thorpe Street, I thought it was quite popular but that might be just clouded memories that come with old age. I also recall how we had to fix a bracket to a building to hold the line before it went into the premises, we made a hole in the brickwork, mortar, etc. with something like a small punch and then secure the screws holding the bracket by chewing flakes of asbestos into a paste and filling the holes with the compound for it to harden, these were the days before rawplugs !
 
I remember Thorpe Street. The Union meetings were held there for a time. But a bit of a distance from Telephone House for a dinner time pint !
 
chrissweep said:
I also recall how we had to fix a bracket to a building to hold the line before it went into the premises, we made a hole in the brickwork, mortar, etc. with something like a small punch and then secure the screws holding the bracket by chewing flakes of asbestos into a paste and filling the holes with the compound for it to harden, these were the days before rawplugs !
Click to expand...
Surely you didn't chew it,
P1110052R.jpg
 
Anyone remember Birmingham 'Rectory' at Sutton Coldfield - the UK's first large electronic exchange - I was a senior commissioning engineer with Standard Telephone & Cables, there working on getting it up and running in the early 1970's. Used get visited by lots of folk from around the World to see it including regular visits by Bill Rylands, Chairman of the Post Office. To think, the technology has long been replaced! Years later I was present at the ceremony of what BT thought was 'The Last Electro-mechanical exchange' at Crawford in Scotland on 23rd June 1995 but I knew it wasn't. The following month I was present at the very last change-over on the tiny island of Foula. Then I recovered the exchange for my collection.RectoryTXE4-1973 .jpg
 
mw0njm. said:
BRITAIN’S famous speaking clock may have been introduced in 1936 but it still keeps perfect time for the 30 million people who use the service each year.

Click to expand...
The old GPO Speaking Clock of the 1960's (with the voice of Pat Symmonds) is still working on the UK public network on its old code 8081 used outside Birmingham (Birmingham used 'TIM'/846 later changed to '123'). Just dial from your mobile/landline 0135283 followed by 8081 - a normal landline number so likely to be in your 'free' calls package.
 
Pellseinydd said:
The old GPO Speaking Clock of the 1960's (with the voice of Pat Symmonds) is still working on the UK public network on its old code 8081 used outside Birmingham (Birmingham used 'TIM'/846 later changed to '123'). Just dial from your mobile/landline 0135283 followed by 8081 - a normal landline number so likely to be in your 'free' calls package.
Click to expand...
welcome. to the forum pellseinyd.
 
KNOWLE telephone dialling codes - does anyone know what the local dialling codes to other local exchanges were in the 1960/80's ? The Subscriber Trunk Dialling Code in those days for Knowle was 0564 5 And I know that there was at least one local code to Lapworth. These are needed as Knowle 'exchange' is being added to our replica of the old UK GPO public network that we have replicated working over the Internet using the technology BT are starting to convert the public network to. However we still use the old codes of the 1960/70's so Birmingham is still 021-xxx xxxx and Walsall 0922 xxxxx. There are many old phones and former GPO exchanges connected - I have the oldest working GPO automatic exchange that served a village in Northumberland from 1929 until replaced in 1950. The network has lines all over the World as far away as New Zealand - no 'line rental' or call charges.

Unfortunately most Birmingham exchanges were far too large to preserved in their entirety.

I'm only looking for the local codes from Knowle in the 1960/70's - a photo/scan would be great if you happen to have an old dialling codebook - BT stopped producing them circa1984 when the went into the newly formatted 'Phonebook'
 
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