The number line and pilot line represent the message heading presented to the automatic routing equipment. AA is Australia PE is Perth, CO is ordinary rate, GB is Great Britain BM is Birmingham, 009 is number of chargeable words.

On the first leg of the message, a telegram identification group (TIG) was typed in to indicate to whom the message was to be charged, then automatically omitted by the equipment on subsequent legs.

The Service positions handled the formulating of requests (A's) for repetitions or replying to such requests from distant administrations. An ITU/Cable & Wireless codebook was our bible listing hundreds of 5 letter code groups. The groups most often used were the ones starting with the letter "R", which was the section for undelivered telegrams. Some 3 letter Z codes were used as well for RQ's on-circuit queries such as ZCD 'collation differs'.

With any law of probability, minor, (and major) disasters could, and did happen with phonograms. Sometimes with eyebrow raising consequences. A farmer, in a remote hamlet who received the telegram: "Twenty black-faced youths despatched by rail 9.30am" may have expected a contingent of African trainees rather than the ewes which finally arrived.

Monitoring payment by public payphone for overseas telegrams was laborious because of the amount involved. Customers would arm themselves with pocketfuls of 10p coins and you'd dutifully start ticking off the tones made by coins inserted but soon lost track. One telegram sender admitted to me he wasn't the owner of the private payphone, but he'd used the key to open it up and was using the same coin all the time.

Special events, mostly sporting, were an opportunity for telegraphists to get out of the office and join the mobile team in the coach, an AEC or a Dennis, not sure. This service for the press started in April 1956 and was an acceptable part of cricket tours, motor racing, world championships, Wimbledon..etc.

Bill Bass the engineer-driver in the 70's remembered during the Australian cricket tour of 1968 when the coach was parked in the cricket grounds at Worcester. A distinguished looking man was hurrying towards the coach with a sheaf of copy to transmit to the Jamaican newspaper The Gleaner. Richardson, then at the wicket, hit a tremendous six and the ball sped towards the coach. The gentleman, dropping his bundle of papers, made a superb catch and saved the coach's windows. The timely 'fielder' was the well-known cricketer, the late Sir Leary Constantine.

As well as point-to-point services, the mobile offered International Telex and a picture service. It saw its fair share of skirmishes. It had to be protected by a mounted policeman at the Man. Utd v Estudiantes match, was rocked in a riot at rugby matches and was struck by lightning at Lords.

The counting of words was cause for much discontentment amongst customers but perfectly understandable to us! The phone started to ring. 'Telegraphs', was the reply. A gentleman's voice started, 'Ah yes. Now as it happens, I am going to send a telegram and would appreciate some guidance. Perhaps you might inform me if the word "lawn mower" is one or two words?'. The reply was, 'Two words'. The gentleman continued, 'Is that so. Well then perhaps you could tell me. If I went to purchase a lawn mower, would I get it in one or two parts?'

The sheer logic of the old gentleman's reasoning was unanswerable.

Overtime was abundant, as much as you wanted. Even on Sundays, one could volunteer for 6 hours writing out MATS tickets which were telegram accounting cards. The early weekday shift was good for O/T, rostered on 0700-1420 then 4 hours overtime, punching most of the afternoon. RSI ? Most of us suffered but did we complain......nah.

I thoroughly enjoyed my career, roaming the world telegraphically, so many characters, so many memories. Will we see again the sight of a telegram messenger boy politely doffing his cap, tendering a telegram and asking if there is a reply?

Larry Rice OTO1 Birmingham ITAO 1961-1982 11/10/1999 +++++++

The External Telecommunications Executive

By Rodger Bean

Here is a précis of my time with the External Telecommunications Executive. I still have the actual course notes, so if, for example, anyone wants to know how to service a Creed type 7, I could send them a copy. I even have some notes on the Marconi HU21s and Hasler Eltor.

From my time at Civil Aviation which came after E.T.E., I have a set of course notes from C.A.S.T.E. (Civil Aviation Signals Training Establishment), which was at Bletchley Park, covering the TMC MCVT system.

I have also noticed a tendency to begin to recall things I thought I had forgotten about staff, buildings etc.

The ETE (External Telecommunications Executive) and Electra House.

I started with ETE at Electra House in September 1964. Along with a bunch of other young lads I was introduced to our training officer, a stout man whose name I cannot recall, but I do remember that his secretary’s name was Tania. He summed up our responsibilities by saying, “Do as I say not as I do”. Our group of trainees was then shown to Arundel House, which was adjoining the Western end of Electra House, to collect our issue of dust jackets etc. My starting pay was about £7-0-0 per week and one of the first things I saved up for was a new AVO Mk8, which cost me about £30-0-0.

The training course had been changed in the recent past from a 2 year one to a 3-year course. One reason was to broaden our knowledge by including some experience with the Telephony side of the GPO. I spent some time at Loughton Telephone exchange, which had only recently been upgraded from a manual exchange to a 4000 series Strowger exchange. In fact the old manual board was still in the process of being scrapped. The exchange had a rotary ringing generator, traditional test desk, and dual 50v battery. The master clock was a pendulum type with a pulsed electromagnetic maintaining system. And the building was of the older style combined PO and exchange in red brick with the Post Office fronting the High Street.

From there I moved to an old exchange in the Walthamstow area. This one was so old that it was, I think pre 2000 series equipment. (The two motion selectors used gravity return on the vertical motion and had curved dark green or grey covers). The rack wiring was rubber insulated and had all perished. It was so brittle that any fault wires were just cut at each end, without disturbing the rest of the wiring, and then a new length of wire was run in to replace it. At this exchange I did “subs apps” (subscriber apparatus maintenance) and store keeping.

I then went to somewhere in the Wansted-Ilford area to go with the “poles & holes” crews. In those days a three-man crew was used to erect poles up to the 45-foot, light grade. The only lifting gear was the three-section extension ladder and ropes and the holes were dug by hand! About this time I was on the crew doing the change from the manual to the automatic exchange at Hainault. This involved threading twine through all the line fuses down to broom handles, so that with a one person per handle all the line fuses on the manual exchange could be pulled simultaneously.

During my time with the Telephone division I did the LTE (Line Termination Equipment?) training course. This covered everything from the subscribers telephone up to and including the exchange. The telephone installation section was held somewhere near Notting Hill Gate. The overhead cabling and pole erection was held somewhere in NE London, near the North Circular Road. Due to a clerical error I spent about twice as long as I should have done in the Telephone division.

Back at Electra House I went on several training courses, most of which were held at 41- 46 Featherstone Street, EC1, just near Old Street underground station. On the opposite side of the road was a training school for banking staff (which bank? - sorry, local joke). We would occasionally shout and gesticulate across the street. The courses were workshop practice where we were taught basic metalwork, and made some of our own hand tools. Then later on there was the “A” course, which was based on the City & Guilds technician’s course 49, with a bias (pardon the pun) towards Telegraphy. In addition there was the ARQ course, which covered the principles of the Teleprinter over Radio system. Which was followed by the Hasler Eltor equipment course.

There were two other courses (relay and uniselector adjustment), which were held in nearby Paul Street EC2, which we were already familiar with as Featherstone Street only had a tearoom and we used the Paul Street canteen for lunch. Featherstone St was run by ETE and Paul St by the Telephone division of the GPO (LTR). The only staff member I remember from Featherstone St was Ken Ernshaw, who taught among other things Morse code and keyboard. Ken had served on MTBs (Motor Torpedo Boats) during the war and would occasionally relate some of his wartime experiences.

On 7/9/67 I was appointed as a Tech 2A on probation, at a starting rate of £14.12.6d rising to £16.14.6d.

I also received notification on 25/7/68 of selection, at a later date yet to be notified, for training as a Technical Officer (TOiT).

Not all of my time after completing my training was spent at E.H. Some time was spent at St Botolphs, where the Hasler ELTORs were being installed. Also at St Botolphs were a large number of recently commissioned MCFT systems, some of which were made by TMC. I was to encounter these again when I was working at Bletchley Park for the Board of Trade (Civil Aviation). This was all in the top floor of the building whose location I forget, except that it was within walking distance of Liverpool Street station.

Also I recall a day visit to Cardinal House to see the equipment there, including the Philips TMBO that was a magnetic tape TTY buffer. It used ¼” magnetic tape in an endless loop, housed in a Perspex box on the front of the machine. I recall one of the maintenance techs complaining that Philips changed from +ve logic to -ve logic, and did this in the middle of a circuit!

Another place I worked at for a few weeks was a sort of ETE outstation located in Livonia Street W1. That was interesting for a young lad, walking from the underground station through Soho! The TO in charge was a motor bike enthusiast. He used to tune and race Bantam motorbikes.

Whilst a Tech 2A at E.H. I worked in teleprinter maintenance, mainly on the Creed type 7s, and also TDMSs (Telegraph Distortion Test Set), which were made by ATE of Bridgenorth. The TDMSs were used to check the performance of teleprinters and tape readers. I also had the chance to observe the old Morse circuits, which were still operational. Part of the Morse systems was on the third floor, I think, at the eastern end of the building, and comprised of a rack of STC equipment. I can’t quite recall what the STC equipment was although it did use valves and a pair of carpenter polarised relays per channel/cct. So I suspect they were part of the old Morse undersea cable system, as having two relays per cct suggests that cable code was being used. There were still some transatlantic Morse ccts working, including a 12 channel mechanical multiplexer, driven I think, by a 1kHz phonic motor. This part of the Morse system was somewhere closer to the ground floor.

Also in the eastern end of the third floor were the MCVFT systems. These I recall used KT66 valves and were aligned using a test set mounted on a trolley. The test set was a tunable voltmeter, sort of a forerunner to the spectrum analyser. It could be tuned to the mark or space frequency of the channel to check for correct tuning, and could also observe the centre frequency if a signal with 50% mark/space ratio was sent.

On I think the fifth floor was the mechanical workshop. Where I recall watching a rebuild of one of the rotary multiplexer switches from the old mechanical Hasler TORs. I can only remember one of the staff by name, he was a South American gentleman named Ven Zornosa. There was also a heavy mech workshop in the basement, where they did welding and sheet metalwork, amongst other things.

Also on the fifth floor was the wire photo section the wire photo machines of which I think there were three pairs, comprised one transmit and one receive section per pair. Each section had one small lathlike machine in a lightproof box and a six foot 19” rack full of electronics. In the transmitter section, the lid of the “lathe” would be opened, exposing a drum. The picture to be sent would be wrapped around the drum of the “lathe” and the lid closed. The circuit to the receiving end would be established and a synchronising signal sent. When the receiver’s drum was syncronised the picture would be transmitted. This was done using an amplitude modulated audio tone over a phone line.

At the receiving end this modulated audio tone would be demodulated, and used to control the brightness of a lamp. The drum of the receive machine would have an unexposed negative wrapped around it. After the transmission was finished the lightproof box, with the now exposed film would be removed, and it was then taken to the darkroom, which was at the far end of the room. The developed film would be printed and sent by motorcycle “delivery boy” to the recipient, usually one of the Fleet Street newspapers.

Even back in the 1960s this equipment was so old that Muirheads, the manufacturers, didn’t have any technical information on them. Their pre war records had been destroyed in a bombing raid!

Most of the time as a TOiT I was in ARQ maintenance, which was on the third floor of E.H.. The electromechanical TORs had just been decommissioned and scrapped, and the Marconi HU21s were the only operational TORs. These, unlike the old Haslers were all electronic. Apart that is for the output relay, which was upgraded to an electronic one. These HU21s were decommissioned about the time I resigned. I believe one of them was donated to the London Science Museum

Below: A letter of thanks for a job well done.

My Colleagues

I don’t remember many of my colleagues from that time, those that I do were, John Williams, who I assisted on a couple of technical investigations. Des Brideson and Nicolas Platreides, these were all TOs I think. Des was a keen Judo student and Nicolas Platreides (I hope I have spelt his name correctly) organised the section Christmas dinner one year at a Greek restaurant. The others I can remember but not by name are:

One young (mid to late 20s) man who had a scar on his upper lip, rumored to have been caused by a soldering iron. He also had a petite wife who was occasionally asked, to her annoyance, when buying a bus or train ticket if that was adult or child.

There was also an older (to a mere 19 year old) quiet man, who would always start his day with a cuppa and the newspaper.

There were two younger guys on the third floor. Alan Paul, who had been a trainee just before the change from 2 year traineeship to 3, and there was another TO of a similar age nicknamed Yogi Bear. Looking at the St. Botolph's web page of International Telegraphs with a picture of two staff at St Botolphs taken in 1978, Ron Sydney’s face looks familiar but I don’t recall anything about him.

The Final Message?

In those days, the GPO was very strict about the issue and later return of stores items issued to staff.

On 16/06/69 I transferred to the Board of Trade (Civil Aviation), and remained on loan to them until 31/03/72, at which time I officially resigned from The GPO or as it had then become, The PO. As one of my friends used to say “We were demoted from God’s Poor Orphans to just Poor Orphans”.

Rodger Bean

Fleet Building

The Fleet Building, Farringdon Street, London EC2, was named after the course of the old Fleet River (long since covered over) and the nearby Fleet Street. Installation of the Telex Exchange began on 25th May 1959 and was operational by 10th December 1960.

Colin Howes writes...

ZCZC

October 2004

Telegraph Engineer

I worked in Fleet from 1963 to 1992 as a Telegraph Engineer.

Fleet Building housed the Inland Telex and International Telex exchanges, London Inland Telegrams, Manual cordless switchboards for International Telex, Inland and International test rooms, Fleet Mux (ARQ terminal) and an MCVF terminal.

I started in January 1963 as a youth in training and left in March 1992 as TOA of the MCVF (multi-channel voice frequency) terminal.

I too as Rodger Bean did, spent time at the Featherstone Street training centre doing the ARQ principles course with Len Warwick as lecturer and a Marconi HU121 ARQ course with Harry Pizey as lecturer.

I well remember the Electra House Telegraph and PIX rooms, the Electra Mux ARQ terminal with George Shaw on the fault control desk, the electromechanical faceplate Tors and the Hasler HU21 electronic (cold cathode) Tors.

We at Fleet Mux had the Hasler transistorised and Marconi HU121 transistorised Tors.

During my time working in the International test room (late 1960s) I was involved with the NASA Apollo moon landings telegraph private wire circuits to the various earth tracking stations as well as looking after the HF radio Telex and private wires.

I then moved to the Frequency shift MCVF terminal that had both International and Inland 24 channel systems as well as Hasler Syntoc (synchronous telegraphy over cable),also known as SUEMUX (six unit electronic multiplex equipment). Latterly, moving into the digital bearer age, 184 channel and 60 Channel TDM systems were installed.

In the early nineties the Fleet SPC electronic Telex exchange was installed together with its own 60 Channel TDM transmission suite, the 60 channel TDM for the SPC came under my control as well as the MCVF terminal.

One of Rodger's letters is signed by training officer Mr. A.L. Taverner, I well remember Him as his office was in Fleet Building.

Sadly Fleet Building is currently being demolished, (so I am told) to make way for a building that is more in keeping with the Holborn Viaduct area architecture.

Telegram messenger boys

"Messengers of Hockley B.O. (Branch Office) Birmingham March 1953"

T. Farmer, J. Deathridge, J. Cross J. Hart, T. Mason, J. Pervis T. Cooke,

J. Richardson.

Roger Green writes...

ZCZC

November 2007

Telegram Messenger Boys

We have set up a web site for former Telegram Messenger boys to keep in touch with each other and are hoping to contact as many Post Office Telegram Messenger Boys (wags) as possible.

The word 'wags' was used for Birmingham Telegram Messenger boys; we don't know for sure, but we believe it was short for 'scallywags'. London Telegram Messenger boys were known as 'moppers'- a telegram was a mop. Most of the telegram boys began work aged 14 or 15 and delivered telegrams on foot, by bike and then motorcycles, in the days before telephones were widespread and a telegram was the only way of getting a message to someone on the same day.

We hope that former messenger boys will enjoy the site, and will contribute stories, articles, and any old photographs that can be sent by e-mail. We record memories of their years as messenger boys (wags) sent to us, and feature photographs of past reunions. We also accept any correspondence through the post, and will return all items after they have been scanned onto the website.

The Telegram Messenger boys have a lot of history, and it would be a shame if any of that was forgotten.

www.birminghamsandsclub.co.uk/messenger.htm