HOLD THE LINE

I came across this small military telephone exchange on a recent visit to the Fort bij Vechten museum on the old Dutch Waterline near Houten in the Netherlands.

It brought back memories, as this was the sort of telephone exchange we had in the Irish Department (Ministry) of Finance when I joined in the late 1960s, though ours was on a bigger scale.

It was manned by a group of young women (then called girls) who most of the new young recruits got to know on a daily basis.

I remember an occasion in the 1970s when both features described above proved most useful.

I was working, inter alia, on Northern Ireland affairs in the Department. An occasion arose where I would need to contact the duty (out of hours) officer in the Department of Foreign Affairs (Foreign Ministry) later that evening to be updated on a project which that Department was involved in.

Now, when the time came for me to contact that Department, I was sitting, with a friend from Radio Éireann, in Madigan's pub in Moore St. not far from the GPO where Radio Éireann was headquartered in them days.

So, I would have to ring the Department of Foreign Affairs from the public phone in the pub with clearly identifiable pub noises in the background. Remember the public phones with their A & B buttons?

In all the circumstances I figured I'd have a job convincing the duty officer that I was who I was. Then, in a Eureka moment, the idea came to me.

I rang the Finance switch where the girl knew me and asked her to put me through to Foreign Affairs but to make sure first that she identified herself as Finance and then introduced me onto the line.

And Bob's your uncle.

I love the old technology.