Any 'Night Owls' out there from B.T. or even the GPO?

Question

I trained in Portsmouth as a telephone operator in 1961 for the GPO. My very first time away from home as we were put into digs at Cosham. After 2 years, I left to go onto a PBX which was the dream of all us girls, get employed by a private company and run their switchboard. Do you remember the 'blinking eyes'? I left, had kids, did part time work then, went back to B.T. Still on the old plugs, which I loved then we retrained for BTOSS. Very inovative but eventually cost us all our jobs.
Anyone who wasn't a Night Owl or telephone operator won't have a clue what I am talking about but here goes anyway.

Methinks all Night Owls have flown away!

Never mind. I will just answer myself and say ' why did you ask the Q in the first place?

I even tried to mark my Q as interesting! Is this some sort of record?
i.e. No answers?

Answer 1

In the nineteen sixties worked for the GPO as an Engineer in the North of England. I might have crossed your line a time or two but I doubt it.
did you have a favourite technician many PBX operators did(not only the female ones, God help us), those were the days.

Answer 2

I didn't do that, but I did work for seven years for the board of education of the Pasadena City Schools, and part of my job was to relieve the switchboard operators so they could take coffee and lunch breaks.

That was a blast, and I really enjoyed it: two wires, one to connect to the caller, the other to connect the caller to an office, and a switch to talk or listen or not.

Sometimes I'd be at the PBX talking to one of my kids, and a call would come in, and I'd say, "OK, be quiet, now, and don't say a word." They'd hear the whole connection being made, and then we could resume our talk.

I forget how many incoming lines there were, but there were 32 trunk lines on a pair of boards.

Answer 3

My mom was a telephone operator in the 40's when you picked up the phone and the operator said "number please?"
The numbers only had two numbers back then. We used to be able to call and ask for the correct time too. Oh yes and we had a few "party lines" too all with our own little ring.
You sound like you had an interesting life.

Answer 4

Not in tune with all the abbreviations. But US phone system in my early years ran through "Hulda Kitchens" shed. She just used patch cords to make the connections (don't know how she hooked into the "main" trunk lines). We had seven folks on our part line, and our ring was one long and two short. Never forget how annoy mom would get with some of the gossip being passed daily -- course she always got her two cents worth in.

Answer 5

I was never an telephone operator, but when I was young my paternal grandfather always told me, 'I want you to be a telephone operator when you grow up.' He never did tell me why, maybe because I talked so much. lol It sounds like you enjoyed your job.

When we were kids we had a semi-private phone line that only one other family was on. We had a special ring for us.
I remember when operators got numbers for us and there was no extra charge. Phones and operators sure have changed alot.