"I'm going to the employment office next week to see if I can get an apprentiship with an electrician, do you want to come with me?" asked my friend Billie Gibbs. "No, I don't need to" I replied.
"Well, what are you going to do about a job when you leave school at the end of year?"
"Dad wants me to start in the Post Office as a messenger, he's already asked about it."
It was true, but he had been told I would have to wait as there was no vacancy there until next year. My Father had worked in the Post Office most of his life, until recently he had been foreman of a line gang but a few months ago when the war started he was moved to a job in the Telephone Managers Office. My parents had just presumed that I would "follow in my fathers footsteps" and had never thought to ask me what I wanted to do for my first job. For the past two or three years most of my school holidays and Saturday mornings had been spent going to work with Dad. I was really happy helping the men to dig pole holes, pull wire and light the fire to boil water in the billy to make cocoa with at morning break time. It was natural for them to take it for granted that I would want to do this kind of work full time.The Post Office didn't employ boys leaving school to do that kind of work, though. I would have to get a job as a message boy then, if I qualified when I sat my Civil Service examination, I would be offered an adult job.
So that's what happened, Billie went to work as an electrician and I joined the Post Office. Messenger boys were employed not only to deliver telegrams but also as office boys, and after a few weeks I became one of them , at the Regional Directors office. In this building there was a workshop on the ground floor where teleprinters that telegrams were sent on were serviced. I was offered a job there if I gained sufficient marks when I sat my examination, and that is how I started training as a telegraph technician.
It would take two years for me to train as a technician, but I was soon kept busy making myself useful. I started with unpacking the teleprinters as they were delivered from the railway for overhaul and repacking them again in special crates afterwards. I was shown how to oil and adjust the stamp vending machines and the Post Office clocks that were serviced in our workshop and this became my full responsibility. In time I started helping the technicians by dismantling units on the teleprinters for them to work on and later on I was given my own work bench and did the complete job. I qualified as a technician close to the time that the war ended and was called up for military service soon afterwards and became an Intrument Repairer in the R.A.F. Another period of training started, but this time I found my Post Office training helped my conversion to the new role of helping to keep Lancaster bomber aircraft flying.
After demobilisation I resumed work in the Post Office, but conditions in England were in some ways as austere as they had been in war time. There was still a shortage of goods and many forms of rationing remained in force. After making inquiries in London and Wellington the New Zealand Labour Department offered me employment with the Post and Telegraph Department and in March 1950 I migrated to New Zealand and sailed in the "Atlantis" from Southampton. Like most of my companions on board this was the first time I had left England. We were well cared for throughout the voyage, with an immigration official and his wife accompanying us. Periodically we were gathered together to be given information by way of discussion and film to accustom us to the conditions we could expect to find in New Zealand. We reached Wellington in May of that year and I began work at the Chief Post Office in Featherston Street in Wellington within a few days. Our workshop was on the first floor of the building with windows looking out onto Panama Street and across to Queens wharf that was full of activity with the constant arrival and departure of shipping.
I had been pleasantly surprised that the rate of pay for my job was almost twice what I had been led to expect, and most things that I needed to buy cost far less than they did in England. I soon formed personal friendships with the men at work and enjoyed my job. Unlike England, here we were in touch with the staff using the teleprinters, those who worked in Featherston Street, in the Hutt Valley Post Offices, the operators training school at Wingate and some State and private business concerns. One piece of equipment I was introduced to what was then called the facsimile machine. The fax machine was then used only in the Post Office Savings Banks, but it was only possible to work over a short distance. With the use of these machines a bank customer living in Petone or Lower Hutt could withdraw cash in Wellington as an exact copy of their signature was transmitted to the office where their account was held. The appearance of the machine resembled an Edison cylindrical gramophone. A metal backed paper was secured around the drum, as it revolved the message was burnt into the paper causing trails of smoke to rise into the air as the letters very slowly became visible. I never expected the fax machine to survive and it's developement from the crude original is amazing.
We may well wonder what inventions and discoveries are ahead and what things you, my grandchildren, will live to see.