Lots of photos and I hope you enjoy the memories.
A new museum opened in Hawthorn, a local area known as Glenferrie. There used to be one at the old Richmond Post Office.
It took me about half an hour of searching to find who owns this. It is still not clear to me who owns the site.
- Charity Size:
- Small
- Who the charity helps:
- Adults - aged 65 and over
- Children - aged 6 to under 15
- Youth - 15 to under 25
- Date established:
- Last reported:
- Next report due:
- Financial year end:
- 30/06
Summary of activities
We operate museums in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane, which maintain heritage telecommunications of national significance. We provide programs and educational tours for schools as well as the general public in the area of telecommunications.
It is called the National Communication Museum and is appropriately located in an old telephone exchange (putting you through now caller).
I certainly remember these public phones. Earlier phones had you rolling a coin into a slot. Press button A to load your coin to speak. Press button B to retrieve your coin if your call did not connect. I recall button B made a kind of buzz noise as it returned your non existent coin. Is below a typewriter with circular typing keys?
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This phone was a bit of fun.
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The entry fee wasn't cheap, at something like $25 but an annual pass was a bargain and I rather wish I'd bought to revisit.
I filmed some short videos. The first is surveillance cameras, with Big Brother watching you.
The second is, would you believe, is a talking clock machine. "At the third stroke, it will be 5.02 am and ten seconds."
The third is a creepy robot lady I was a little scared of. She did not seem aware of people as obstacles, so people stepped out of the way. Had they not, maybe she would have diverted around them.
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Some of those old phones are sooo very familiar. And yes, I remember phone banking and what a decided improvement it was on actually going in to the bank. Something I now do perhaps once a year...
ReplyDeleteEC, it is hardly a wonder banks are closing branches. Few people visit them, including me. But having said that, my local branch that has been de-tellered, was terrifically helpful after Ray died.
DeleteI remember using those smelly phone boxes, and having to insert the right coins, then press A after dialling, then once your party, as they were called, answered, remembering to press B to speak or they couldn't hear you! And when you came across a booth, nipping in to press B just in case coins fell out!
ReplyDeleteBoud, you've triggered a memory of the smell of them. As I remember, you put your coin in, and pressed button A to drop the coin when the person answered. If the person did not answer, you pressed button B to retrieve your coin. What we all have in common was pressing button B when passing by to see if a coin was returned.
DeleteI bow to your superior memory of those dang buttons!
DeleteThe A/B black public phone you showed is pretty much exactly like the ones we had here in Merrie Olde Englande.
ReplyDeleteYP, the public phone box too perhaps. Australia was sensible back then and we did not reinvent the wheel but just took on what Merrie Olde did.
DeleteOh...memories.
ReplyDeleteWe had a Trimphone at home in the 70s. A yucky shade of green. Our budgie used to mimic its chirping ring so we often used to rush to answer the 'phone to find nobody was there.
That's funny on two counts JayCee. I remember that olive green colour and in retrospect, it was hideous, but we never thought so at the time.
DeleteAndrew this is fantastic, I lived in Broadford, mum and a brother still live there, mum didn’t get the phone on until I was 21 and I’d left home by 5 years then. But I remember the telephone exchange with all the plugs, my mother used to say if I made a call from the public phone box, never to say anything that I didn’t want mum to know because the exchange ladies were known to listen in to calls. Marie, Cheltenham
ReplyDeleteMarie, you had a wise mother but I am sure there were juicier calls for operators to listen in on than one you might have made at the time.
DeleteI enjoyed visiting a computer museum a few years ago. All of it seems more and more recent the older I get.
ReplyDeleteLol Tasker. At times I wish I was a digital native with opposable thumbs, but in another way, I am proud of the speed I could compose an sms by pressing the 1 key three times to make a 'c', all just using my forefinger, as I still do now.
DeleteThere was a public phone box on the corner of two main streets near my parents' house in Melbourne. I only used it to ring my beloved's home in Sydney by jiggling the handle somehow, and avoiding the very expensive long distance costs.
ReplyDeleteHels, that would be called a hack nowadays. I can't remember specifically the hacks you could do with public phones, but they were there. My grandmother used to ring home from a public phone after church, and my grandfather knew she needed to be picked up, without having to answer the phone and Grandma didn't need to use a coin.
DeleteLong ago I was a telephone switchboard operator. High school years. We had a party line for awhile, when growing up, and could listen in on neighbors conversations if quiet enough picking up. Sometimes they'd yell "Get off the line".
ReplyDeleteStrayer, we too had a three household party line in the country. The ring for our phone was short, long, long. As a kid, I did pick up the phone and listen in. Once someone on the phone said, someone is listening in, and I was too scared to ever do it again.
DeleteI have recurring dreams about phones and have had them since we had rotary phones. My dreams have kept up with the times and I've gone through all the different iterations of phones over the years. My best guess is that I'm trying to communicate with someone and can't because I can't make the phone work.
ReplyDeleteLove seeing the old phones.
Pixie, I have nothing to say about your recurring phone dreams beyond your explanations sounds reasonable.
DeleteI recently did a page in my art journal of a phone. Early 1900's. I still recall my parents phone number.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was very, very young we had a black rotary phone. Then we got a beige push button phone, which seemed so futuristic at the time. It still seems to me futuristic even though that future has passed!
ReplyDeleteKirk, the terminology is interesting. We called them dial phones. The arrival of push button phones was truly amazing. They led to phone based hook up sites, where you post an add or reply to what you heard others posted, just by using phone buttons and speaking.
DeleteCreepy robot lady reminds me of the weeping angels in Doctor Who, (episode Don't Blink). I once had a phone like the one pictured in #7 photo. I've seen the decoding machines in old movies where there were spies.
ReplyDeleteI've watched some Doctor Who, River. Which doctor was it?
DeleteDavid Tennant, the 10th Doctor Who.
DeleteGreat to see all of these photos, Andrew. Some of those items brought back good memories. That robot women, well!
ReplyDeleteMargaret, of course the digital natives will have no knowledge of the old tech days. What amazing things we have experienced in our lifetimes.
DeleteThat's an interesting museum, well worth more visits. There are very few telephone kiosks in action now. Most have been removed, in this area, anyway. Woe betide you if you haven't got a mobile 'phone.
ReplyDeleteJB, I hadn't seen anyone using a public phone for years, and then I did. He was using the public phone to try to sort out his mobile phone problems. Many of ours have gone, but there are still some, mostly used as large advertising boards.
DeleteI love this place! I will go visiting
ReplyDeleteThere's a phone museum at my place, but it's small and not of national significance, comprising as it does the remains of numerous mobile phones, some of which (if they still work) may have irreplaceable numbers, pictures, messages or call history.
ReplyDeleteMC, it just a matter of applying the time and mood to move all of those things on old phones to somewhere else.
DeleteOdd little museum but then you see all that stuff and it makes perfect sense.
ReplyDeleteBob, I thought it was terrifically interesting. Others may not.
DeleteThere is a young generation that will never know the joys of a real phone call, that didn't get dropped every three minutes.
ReplyDeleteTP, I am very happy not to be attached to a phone by a short cord and hardly able to do anything else.
DeleteWhat a fun place, Andrew. We have a tv museum here that I keep meaning to visit. I think it could be the same kind of experience.
ReplyDeleteThat would be interesting to see, Pat. Do take lots of photos to share with us.
DeleteInteresting! That white desk phone doesn't look dramatically different from the phone on my desk at work -- except mine is black. Looks like they have an impressively wide variety of stuff on exhibit.
ReplyDeleteSteve, yes there are still lots of those phones around in offices etc, but now even medical phone calls are made by mobile phone.
DeleteIn my front hall, I have a wooden box with a crank on the side. There is a receiver on the front looking like a trumpet to speak into. The earpiece hangs from the side on a hook. https://www.thesprucecrafts.com/identifying-antique-wall-telephones-149155
ReplyDeleteMy uncle rewired the inside to be a rotary phone, so that it could still be used. Unfortunately, that is obsolete now as well. But it's a pretty decoration for an old house.
Ah Debby, the type of phone used for torture in so many films. There were some wall phones here but they weren't common. Usually a table phone sat on a table in the hallway of the house.
DeleteI would enjoy this!
ReplyDeleteYep Jackie. Wallow in the memories.
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