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Transcript: Mr James William Beale talks about his first job in the Liverpool telephone exchange

by
Liverpool City Library
2015
supported by
Liverpool City Council and Oral History NSW and Royal Australian Historical Society - Oral History project
CC BY-SA 2.0
Cite this

Description

Mr James William Beale was born in 1900 and [media]interviewed in 1986 for the 'Looking Back at Liverpool: An Oral History of the Liverpool Region 1900–1960 ' project. He talks here about his first job, in the Liverpool telephone exchange.

Transcript

INTERVIEWER: How old were you when you left school?

WILLIAM: Thirteen, and I went for a first job as a telegraph boy, delivering telegrams and letters, one thing and another. From there I graduated to be able to take on the telephone exchange, which had only a hundred subscribers at that time.

INTERVIEWER: Is this in Liverpool?

WILLIAM: In Liverpool. Number 1 was doctor; 22 was Fire Brigade and 21 was Liverpool Hospital [which was] the Old Men's Home at the time. And that's about the chief ones. They were the numbers you had to remember quickly so you could…oh, the Police were number 18 I think.' [1]

References

Catherine Johnson (ed). Looking Back at Liverpool: An Oral History of the Liverpool Region 1900–1960 (Liverpool: Liverpool City Council, 1986). http://mylibrary.liverpool.nsw.gov.au/Electronicbooks/Lookingbackatliverpoolanoralhistory-1900-1960.pdf

Notes

[1] Mr James William Beale, interviewed for Looking Back at Liverpool: An Oral History of the Liverpool Region 1900–1960 project, Liverpool City Library, audio, Liverpool, 1986, http://liverpool.spydus.com/cgi-bin/spydus.exe/ENQ/OPAC/BIBENQ?BRN=56313

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