Toeing the party line to keep the island talking
In my last column I wrote about the various joys of the party line telephone systems that used to be common in New Zealand. Party lines, and the rest of New Zealand’s telecommunications, were built and maintained by the New Zealand Post and Telegraph Department. The P&T, as it was commonly known, was founded in 1881 when the Electric Telegraph and Post Office departments were merged. It was officially renamed the New Zealand Post Office in 1959, but the name P&T remained in common use.
I don’t suppose much cash was wasted on rebranding back when the idea of market-focused companies running essential public services was a mere gleam in the eye of 22 year-old Bremworth Carpets employee Roger Douglas.
Living at Kapowai Bay on D’Urville Island in the 1970s, my family had a lot to do with the P&T.
The island’s telephone lines followed the narrow, winding road that climbed out of Kapowai Bay and headed north along its spine. Subsidiary lines branched down steep and exposed ridges into isolated bays.
There was plenty of potential for line damage, given the island’s vulnerability to Cook Strait’s strong, salt-laden winds. Wooden and railway iron poles blew over, trees and branches fell on to the line where it passed through native bush, and sometimes worn-out lines just snapped.
One of the many hats my father wore in his efforts to support the family was that of ‘‘Temporary P&T Linesman’’. He sprang into action when the lines went down, found the break, and mended it as best he could until the permanent linesmen could reach the island.
Sometimes we children were drafted in to help. My father would throw his tools in the back of the long-wheelbase Land Rover, tie a ladder on to the roof rack, and off we’d go to find the break.
Sometimes it was difficult to spot – that was one way we could help – and, when located, tricky to fix.
I well remember being dispatched in a howling gale up a steep, grassy slope at the top of Waitai, a sheep farm at the northern end of the island, to retrieve the loose end of a snapped telephone wire. The wind was whipping it across the slope, but I eventually got hold of it and hauled it down the hill to my father for repair.
He’d join the wires with a copper sleeve and a crimping tool and, if it was impossible to get it back up the pole and into the insulator, a temporary black plastic-coated wire was used to bridge the gap.
Then he’d hook a portable telephone to each end of the break to see if the line was clear and working. If not, we’d set off to search for the next break.
These ‘‘temporary’’ line fixes sometimes stayed in place for a long time.
On their regular trips to maintain the island’s telephone lines, the P&T line gangs used our launch, Land Rover and bach hire business. At least once a year, a gang of linesmen and their support crew arrived at the French Pass wharf with tool kits, coils of wire, boxes of ceramic insulators, ladders, and a week’s worth of supplies.
As well as linesmen, there was a cook and a ‘‘gofer’’, a young apprentice linesman, for general duties.
The trip to D’Urville Island appeared to be something of a perk for the P&T gangs. My father drove them out every day to work, but they always finished in plenty of time to borrow the dinghy and go fishing.
One year, I heard my father say the cook was rumoured to be the girlfriend of one of the married linesmen – knowledge that made me revise my view of these cheerful workers in their steel-capped boots and khaki overalls.
On one occasion, my father had a launch hire job and my mother drove the gang out to work. I went along, too, sitting in the back with the gofer. He was a lanky stripling with no conversation at all, much to my disappointment.
The linesmen’s rigid adherence to morning, lunch and afternoon brew-up times was a surprise. It didn’t matter what stage their work was at, it was tools down for the break.
The gofer jumped to and scuttled about collecting bits of dry bracken and twigs to get the Thermette going. If the tea wasn’t strong enough, he heard about it. He had my sympathy.
By the early 1980s the NZ Post Office had begun the move to microwave telecommunications. It started in the most remote regions, and D’Urville Island’s service was one of the first to be installed. Overnight, our telephone went from a crank-handle party line to a push-button handset, and it was goodbye to the old P&T days forever.
The trip to D’Urville Island appeared to be something of a perk for the P&T gangs.