Holborn 6,4 please...

A couple of weeks ago I posted about some fabulous GPO/BT files I stumbled across in F for Fabulous. I have to admit that I’ve made a point of walking down the service road at the back of the old GPO exchange where I found them in the hope that there might be more treasure, since someone is obviously having a bit of a clear out. And guess what?

 

Don’t get the wrong idea. I don’t make a habit of rooting around in rubbish bags. In fact someone else had done that this morning and thank goodness they had, because otherwise I would never have seen these. They had been strewn on the pavement like so much garbage and not recognised as being historical brand documents, as they most certainly are.

 

It was the logo I spotted first, a big crown and those no-nonsense caps: GPO. I’d happened across an accidental Annual Reports and Engineer Reports graveyard, all were marked highly confidential of course and all containing details of cutting edge technology at the time of their publication and circulation. But sadly, in a lame attempt to preserve their confidentiality, the chucker-outer had torn them in half – an act of social vandalism if ever I saw one – but they’re thrilling nevertheless.

They’re a window on the past that offered a view of the future of telecommunications. How very exotic the new type of phones, including the Trimphone, must have seemed to the people reading these documents while planning their introduction to the public.

There’s something rather beautiful about the purity and simplicity of the typewritten contents. No hiding behind fonts, clipart, pro-forma charts or background textures; just, facts, figures, objectives and innovations. And the naivety (by today’s standards) of the presentation underscores the integrity of the contents rather than diminishes them.

The books I picked up date from 1957-58, 1960-61 (the year of my birth) and 1964-65. As I write this online while occasionally checking my smartphone and posting the photos I have just taken with my iPad, I get a sense of just how far we’ve come.