Memory Lane…. Local Telephone Engineers.
In the 1970’s prior to privatisation, British Telecom was a very comfortable place to work. No GPS vehicle trackers, no travelling half the country to your next job, no twenty minute target visits. Life was grand. Frampton Saul and Arlingham had its own engineers who were known and loved by their users. Our man at that time had a catalogue of elderly ladies he cared for. My Mother at Rosemead would be checked upon just before lunch and he would play the piano whilst lunch for two was being readied. Alice Dowdswell at Wick Court was another customer whom was on the special customer category list. For those who had visited Wick Court at that time will know the kitchen supported a very large Elizabethan Oak Settle which had probably stood there for at least two centuries. Alice must have complained about the inconvenience of her old telephone and our man agreed to move a new phone to the kitchen to a site where she may sit comfortably and talk. Be aware this is the time when cream cable, cream staples and cream telephones where in vogue and also a new invention of power staple guns had been introduced. Kerzamp-Bang!, Kerzamp-Bang, Kerzamp-Bang he power stapled this brilliant cable to the back, all along the top, down the side of this centuries old artefact and onto the arm where a new cream large block terminal was screwed to the Elizabethan Oak arm rest. Job done. Alice could now sit in the warm and chat for hours. In a local graveyard a Settle Maker turned over!