Samuel Morse built the first American telegraph in 1835 and Australia wasn’t too far behind, quickly adopting the wondrous invention.
Telegrams provided a fast means of communication and were sent from PMG Post Offices in Australia, with a charge per word.
Australia’s first Postmaster-General Department was created in 1901 and was known as the PMG. It became responsible for managing all domestic telephone, telegraph and postal services.
Public phones were available in a handful of post offices, but subscriber telephones were initially restricted to major businesses, government agencies, institutions and wealthier residences. Eight million telegrams were sent in the first year.
There were around 33,000 phones across Australia, with 7502 telephone subscribers in inner Sydney and 4800 in the Melbourne central business district.
In 1975, a major restructure took place in the PMG Department, and Australia Post and Telecom emerged as separate entities. Telegram usage had declined by 1975 and in 1993 Australia Post discontinued its letter-gram service, which consisted of postage delivery telegrams. By 1980 many of the manual exchanges in small towns had closed.
For Kyabram’s Anita Ciavarella, and her long-time husband, Nick, the memories of her working in telephone exchanges at Tatura, Ardmona, Kyabram, Shepparton and, for the most part, Tongala, immediately bring a smile to their face.
“We actually managed to get a hold of the Tongala telephone exchange when the service closed and donated it to Rushworth Museum. That’s where it remains,” Nick said.
Anita and Nick were married in 1968. The 1970s was the busiest time for telephone exchanges, as communities grew and more people attached themselves to the network.
Telecom would often have four or five telephonists operating the switchboard during the peak times, and one brave soul — in this case, usually a male — would remain on board for the overnight shift.
“I remember it well, because it was just after Anita had gotten her licence,” Nick said.
“She would drive to Tongala in the morning and then I would hop on the train at Kyabram and go to pick her up so she didn’t have to drive back at night.
“She used to finish at 9pm.”
The well-known Bullingham family was strongly represented on the switch team, which operated 24 hours a day, seven days week.
“When the girls knocked off, the boy would take over and go right through until 7am in the morning. I think the night boy was Noel Lloyd,” Nick said.
Anita and her team were based at the historic Tongala Post Office building,
“There was Mrs Webster, Nay Cameron, Marg Bullingham and her younger sister, along with Wilma Raggett,” Nick said.
The team was sworn to secrecy, as they could hear all the conversations occurring through their headsets.
Nowadays Anita has a mobile phone, but it isn’t used all that often, and the phone calls they get on the land line are mostly “nuisance calls’’.
The couple have three boys, Michael, Matthew and Andrew, along with three grandchildren — maintaining a strong representation in the area that they first came to in 1957.
It was brothers Mick and Tony Ciavarella who first bought the farm on the corner of Sinclair and McEwen Rds.
Things have certainly come a long way since then.
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