READING’S G.P.O. (General Post Office) telephone exchange in Basingstoke Road was highlighted in a special Chronicle spread 52 years ago, featuring the ‘192’ directory enquires service.
The exchange was at the cutting edge of technology with 18 operators handling the incoming calls, using a call queueing system, ensuring all were dealt with equitably in order of arrival.
Many callers, of course, would obtain the number for a listed subscriber anywhere in the country, but (it is hard to believe today), many householders did not have a telephone.
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The staff at Reading would receive 15,000 enquiries a week (2,142 per day) and answer with the immortal line: “Directory enquiries, which town please?”
The G.P.O. also unveiled an altogether different piece of new technology in 1968, the latest TV licence detector van, which they described as “a masterpiece in detector cars.”
Previously, many of the older vans could not register a television in that was tuned to BBC2, but now the latest receiver could, and many local licence dodgers would be nervously closing their curtains and not answering the door.
It was estimated that 1,500 households had not bought a licence in the Reading area, a total of 175 ‘dodgers’ had been discovered in the previous year, with another 500 buying a licence after being caught.
Plans to convert Reading prison into a high security gaol, for 180 long-term prisoners, were unveiled in 1968.
Hopes that the valuable site in the town centre could be freed for redevelopment were set to vanish, despite many local plans to knock down the structure.
The (then) 125-year-old jail had been used as a Borstal (young offender’s institution) since 1951 and the Home Office wanted to return it to adult use.
Sonning Mill, one of the last water wheel operated flour mills in the UK, had announced it was going to cease production in 1969.
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The mill, which was supplying flour to the bread-making industry, employed 25 staff and had made the announcement to allow them to gain jobs elsewhere, bringing an end to milling that had been on site since the 11th century.
A dramatic action photo of motorcycle scrambling star, Keith Hickman, was published in the Chronicle to ‘flag-up’ the Jackpot Scramble at Beenham in 1968.
Crowds of over 15,000 would regularly attend to watch the championship races, and it was a regular feature on the BBC’s flagship sports programme ‘Grandstand’ for many years.
A Chronicle reporter got more than he bargained for when he covered the Home Counties’ Magical Association’s “Evening of Magic” at St. Laurence’s Hall, Reading, as he was ‘chosen’ to be sawn in half.
Marjorie Waddell picked on the scribe with the encouragement of the Chron’s photographer Ian Jeffrey, who later quipped: “If you get sawn in half that means there will be two of you making a noise around the office!”
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