Busy Line

 An entry to Sepia Saturday. "Using old images as new reflections"

A Bell telephone system and all the operators asking "what number do you require", from the US National Archives is this week's prompt.  I wonder if any are like Lily Tomlin's  amusing portrayal of the omnipotent Ernestine the operator?  And how many telephones were in America at this time?  I don't know but there were 1300 in the Lancashire town of Preston in 1922 because

this float tells me so. To get everyone involved the GPO has installed a telegraph pole on the back of the lorry, bet that was a high-ly sought after position.  The General Post Office at this time looked after all means of communication letters, parcels, telegraphs and telephones. From  the 1880s the Post Office were in charge of all telephone exchanges apart from in Hull, Portsmouth and Guernsey who had their own local companies.  You could always spot the Hull telephone directory in a library that had a full set of Telephone Yellow Pages because in contrast it was grey covered.  The GPO changed in the 1980s when the telephone system was privatised by the Thatcher government and that section became the behemoth that is British Telecommunications.

But back to the lorry and its crew of GPO workers.  The date is 1952 and the event is Preston Guild.  The famous expression when something rarely happens is "once every Preston Guild" and it was even more apt in 1952 as this once every 20 years event had been cancelled in 1942 because we were in the middle of a World War.  The Guild celebrations dates back to 1179 when Henry II granted Preston market town status and the 20 year gap was chosen in 1542 because that guaranteed the memberships of the guilds were renewed at least once for each generation.  This year was a Preston Guild year and there have been a variety of events and it once again had the trade floats but going back to 1952 and another form of communication

Harris Museum, Preston photo

the television. Here is the Horrockses "the greatest name in cotton" Television float. Clothes rationing had ended in 1949 and these 1950s cotton dresses could use as much fabric as they wanted and took full advantage.

Returning to the days when you asked the operator for a place and a number and the black and white TV detective series had someone asking the operator for the Scotland Yard number  - Whitehall 1212 and a time when companies didn't cold call, that would be bliss, here is Rose Murphy and the infectious  "Busy Line":