telegrams

[pctodd]

Telegram sir,,

just how long ago were telegrams taken from the royal mail services?

I seem to remeber messenger boys on cycles and the good ole BSA billy Bantam, many ex gpo one si see at the classic bike shows.. did anyone here actually ride them for a job?

[rockytony67]

They went, around the mid-seventies.

[NWpostie]

I sent one back from Alice Springs telegraph station in Australia in April 2008

still going strong in some places albeit as a novelty souvenir item

[Lounge Lizard]

I sent one back from Alice Springs telegraph station in Australia in April 2008

still going strong in some places albeit as a novelty souvenir item

But has it arrived yet ?

[TrueBlueTerrier]

I sent 3 coconuts from Belize in 1990 - they all arrived OK but apparently the Postie was a bit bemused.

[ronnie6]

Telegram sir,,

just how long ago were telegrams taken from the royal mail services?

I seem to remeber messenger boys on cycles and the good ole BSA billy Bantam, many ex gpo one si see at the classic bike shows.. did anyone here actually ride them for a job?

Yep, dertainly did. First on a 125 bantam (where I took my test) and then one of the brand-spanking new 175's with legshields (which I soon took off). As I was a telegram boy in a rural area I was even allowed to keep the bike at home. I remember one telegram which arrived over christmas which I had to deliver at 5:30pm along a coast road, in the snow. When I got back my hands were almost frozen over the handlebars and I was almost crying with the pain !

[tbi1959]

They got rid of them in our office about 1979, and replaced them with bedford vans with big neon lights on the top, think the lights said "express post" or summat

[mikek]

Ah
I was a telegram boy in the 1960s and at that time a telegram cost 5/- for 12 words. (for the children amongst you 5/- is the notation for 5 shillings which at 20/- to the pound equates to 25p)

Joined the GPO at 15 in 1966 and rode a postman's bike to deliver telegrams around Sutton in Surrey. When I was 16 the GPO gave me my motor cycle licence (the GPO conducted their own tests in those day and if they were short of drivers or riders you passed!) and I moved onto a 125 BSA Bantam and then delivered telegrams to Cheam, Banstead, Wallington, Carshalton, Morden, and surrounding areas as well as Sutton.

The bikes had leg shields with a metal tube frame around them which connected to the footrests so if you just let the bike lean to one side it would rest upon the leg shield frame and as a result we would rarely use the stand when leaving the bike as it was pretty much impossible for them to fall over.

Now the best thing about these bikes was that although they would have had trouble pulling the skin off of a rice pudding, with their low saddle in the middle of the bike and therefore a very low centre of gravity, you could throw them into a corner and get a serious shower of sparks off the leg shield frame as it skidded along the road surface.

In 1968 they introduced the BSA 175 which was a much more powerful bike than the 125 but was a whiny modern thing with fibre glass leg shields and NO FRAME to scrape around the corners. Left then and joined the merchant navy.

[NWpostie]

I sent one back from Alice Springs telegraph station in Australia in April 2008

still going strong in some places albeit as a novelty souvenir item

But has it arrived yet ?

Oh yes it did, in one piece alas not by a Telegram lad which would have been nice

[johnsouthwales]

[http://www.thg.org.uk/special_interest/telegraph.html

[johnsouthwales]

http://postalheritage.org.uk/collection ... nications/

[johnsouthwales]

[johnsouthwales]

[johnsouthwales]

[TrueBlueTerrier]