By JESSE GRAHAM
A GROUP of former Healesville telephonists will gather for a catch-up with colleagues later this month, 44 years after the town’s exchange closed up.
On Wednesday 23 September, the ex-telephonists will gather at the Healesville RSL for a reunion, bringing together well-known faces from the community.
Healesville’s Bev O’Brien said the meeting would bring together “at least 20” former staff members from the Healesville Exchange, which shut down in 1971.
The exchange was located in a small building at the rear of the old post office, and employees would work one of three shifts between 7am-11pm – a male telephonist would then do the night shift.
Ms O’Brien said the exchange “always had a good atmosphere”.
“Believe it or not, you never had any arguing or anything like that, no competition amongst them.”
Even the callers – for the most part – were polite, and Ms O’Brien said the telephonists regularly received cards and chocolates for Christmas.
“The locals were very good, but it’s like every job – you get a kick in the teeth occasionally,” she said.
She said any calls to or from Healesville went through the exchange – including when bushfires struck the area in the 1960s.
“It was hectic, it was unreal – it was something you don’t want to go through,” Ms O’Brien said.
“I think then, it may have been a blessing in disguise to have a manual exchange for information, and that sort of thing.
“It was a bit scary, but the girls were all very good.”
Annette Hill, Aunty Dot Peters and Aunty Joy Murphy Wandin are just three of the well-known residents who used to work at the exchange.
This is not the first reunion for the telephonists – a report in the Mail, published on 23 September, 1986, describes one of the group’s reunions, held at the home of one of the telephonists.
The report said that reunion ran until 3am the next day – though the staff at the RSL may have to cut this one off a little sooner.
