House calls
YOUR article on telegraph poles (January 19) took me back 60 years to my father’s time, when the telephone service had a human element. The telephone exchange at Melbourne, Derbyshire, was in the front room of Mrs Bromage’s house in Potter Street, which ran between Castle Square, where we lived, and Derby Road, where we had our butcher’s shop. A caller to the shop might hear a short delay and then Mrs Bromage’s voice saying: ‘I’m getting no reply from Melbourne 49. If you’re looking for Mr Blunt, I’ve just seen him walking past for his lunch.
Would you like me to try the house?’
John Blunt, Leicestershire