My late husband, Leonard Looseley, worked for the Post Office from 1936 until he retired in 1978. His only time away from this job was the years he spent overseas during the war. He started as a "youth in training" at Sloane Telephone Exchange and had to attend evening classes to gain qualifications in order to obtain promotion.
The war intervened for 6 years and in 1946 he returned to Sloane. By then he was married and his first child was about to be born, so he was unable to complete his studies. He remained in the exchange as a Technical Officer, maintaining the equipment and working shifts, including night duty. He commuted firstly from our home in Dulwich by tram, then when we moved to Eltham, by train to London Bridge.
Practical jokes
Life at a telephone exchange was pretty mundane and there was not much excitement. However, in his early days he played a few practical jokes on some of his colleagues, such as sending one of the juniors up to the boss's office with a urine sample, which the boss was not exactly delighted to receive!!
Adventures
Whilst on shift work he had one or two adventures which helped to relieve the boredom. On one occasion he was asked by the police to help trace a caller in a call box who was making anonymous, offensive calls and to keep him talking until the police could arrive to arrest the man.
Another time a lady rang, demanding immediate attention and saying that if she was not attended to straight away she would report him to the Postmaster General who was a personal friend of hers. Len decided to go personally to her address to sort out the problem. This involved climbing under her bed only to be confronted with a chamber pot full of urine!!
Promotions
He was promoted to Leading Technical Officer (LTO), which was the highest he could go without further qualifications and he was then second in command of the exchange.
In 1968, it was decided to promote some of the more experienced LTO without the necessary qualifications, through an interview process. Len went before a board and was finally promoted to Assistant Executive Engineer.
For a short time he took charge of another London telephone exchange, before being offered the position of Training Administrative Officer at Paul Street telephone training centre. Here he was responsible for organising, timetabling and recruiting for in-service training course for telephone engineers.
This was a completely different sort of job from the one he was used to doing, but after a while, he came to enjoy it greatly and found it very rewarding.
He remained in this post until he retired in 1978. One or two of his assistants continued to keep in touch with him until he died in 2004.
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