Number please

The Martinborough manual telephone exchange. Photo courtesy Mate Higginson

By Mike Beckett

The chattering era dawned with the opening of a ‘telephone exchange’. Initially there were few subscribers to the service, mainly businesses. 

In its heyday the telephone exchange employed up tp twenty operators. Along with this was the line staff, eight or nine men who kept the system in South Wairarapa running, fixing both line and equipment faults. The original system had so many moving parts there always seemed to be faults.  

To operate a little crank handle on the phone was given a sharp turn.   This would flick open a ‘shutter’ on the board at the exchange. Alerted, the operator would ask “number Please” and then connect the shutter to that subscriber’s with a retractable cord.  Then give the recipient’s phone a couple of short rings to signal the incoming call.   

‘Party lines’ enabled many subscribers to connect to the limited number of lines available. These would have a number of subscribers sharing the same number each with a Morse Code letter as identification. Our code was ‘S’ with the call sign of three short rings. Party lines had the phone jangling away all day, however the ear became attuned to your call, others went unnoticed.  … Continue Reading