大象传媒

"This story was submitted to the People's War site by a volunteer from 大象传媒 Radio Berkshire's CSV Action Desk on behlaf of Edith Anne Simpson and has been added to the site with her permission. Edith fully understands the site's terms and conditions".

I was working on Baker Street at the telephone exchange. I was on duty the morning war was declared. I was on the emergency board. The bosses allowed all the girls who were on duty to listen in to the Prime Minister's broadcast. We listened to it and within an hour we were notified by the air ministry that unidentified planes had been seen off the coast. We had to pass on air raid warnings to the fire, police, the home guard, hospitals, government departments and even the 大象传媒. We had a code for all these people and we had to say air raid warning red. It turned out to be a false alarm as it was one of our own aircraft off the coast. It caused lots of alarm and we thought we were going to bombed out of existence!

There were about 60 girls at the telephone exchange and a lot of us wanted to join the forces but we weren't allowed as we were considered a reserve occupation on war service. Only a few girls ended up joining in the end.
We had two banks of telephone positions as we were an automatic exchage. We sat with heavy headphones on and like a trumpet attached to our chests. It was very heavy. I had to sit at my desk and every call showed up in lights, there were lights at the bottom for incoming calls. They were white for private line and red for telephone boxes, so the private lines got priority.

There was a large bank in front of me full of plug holes. When we answered the phone we used to say "number please" and then connect the callers.
Before the war I was only allowed to work 36 hours a week but during the war I had to do 48 hours a week and women were now allowed to work until 10pm.

For a year there were the occasional air raid warnings but after 1940 it was different. They started bombing London then we were kept very busy. One of the earlier bombs was where Madame Tussauds in now and the other one took off the pub The Rising Sun on the corner of our building so the boys at work were very upset.

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