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111 is the emergency telephone number in New Zealand. It was first implemented in Masterton and Carterton on 29 September 1958, and was progressively rolled out nationwide with the last exchanges converting in 1988.
In the early days of telephony, companies used manual telephone switchboards, and switchboard operators connected calls by inserting a pair of phone plugs into the appropriate jacks. They were gradually phased out and replaced by automated systems, first those allowing direct dialing within a local area, then for long-distance and international direct dialing.
Wizadora is a children's television programme created by Don Arioli and Carolyne Cullum. It was originally broadcast on SWR in 1991 and it was used as an English-language learning tool for non-English speakers. In 1993, the series was picked up by ITV in the United Kingdom.
Picture Page is a British television non-fiction programme, broadcast by the BBC Television Service from their studios at Alexandra Palace from 1936 to 1939, and again after the service's hiatus during the Second World War from 1946 until 1952. It was the first British television series to become a long-term and regular popular success. The series proved to be very popular with viewers. A BBC survey in 1939 showed the series to be second in popularity behind plays.
Bells Are Ringing is a 1960 American romantic comedy-musical film directed by Vincente Minnelli and starring Judy Holliday and Dean Martin. Based on the successful 1956 Broadway production of the same name by Betty Comden, Adolph Green and Jule Styne, the film focuses on Ella Peterson, based on the life of Mary Printz, who works in the basement office of a telephone answering service.
Letitia Jane Dean is an English actress. She is best known for her portrayal of Sharon Watts in the BBC soap opera EastEnders. An original cast member from 1985 to 1995, she reprised the role from 2001 to 2006, and again from 2012 onwards. For the role, she was awarded the British Soap Award for Outstanding Achievement in 2022.
Dora May Broadbent, known as Dora Bryan, was an English actress of stage, film and television.
Polly Shannon is a Canadian actress. She is best known for her portrayal of Margaret Trudeau in the 2002 miniseries Trudeau, a film about the late Prime Minister of Canada Pierre Trudeau.
Lynn Bari was an American film actress who specialized in playing sultry, statuesque man-killers in roughly 150 films for 20th Century Fox, from the early 1930s through the 1940s.
Edith Marie Blossom MacDonald, also known as Blossom Rock, was an American actress of vaudeville, stage, film and television. During her career she was also billed as Marie Blake or Blossom MacDonald. Her younger sister was screen actress and singer Jeanette MacDonald. Rock is best known for her role as "Grandmama" on the 1960s macabre/black comedy sitcom The Addams Family.
A party line is a local loop telephone circuit that is shared by multiple telephone service subscribers.
Hello is a salutation or greeting in the English language. It is first attested in writing from 1826.
Mary Printz was an answering service operator who catered to many of the New York theater and business A-list in the 1950s. Bells Are Ringing, a Broadway musical, was based on her career, which was turned into the 1960 film of the same name.
Hello Girls was the colloquial name for American female switchboard operators in World War I, formally known as the Signal Corps Female Telephone Operators Unit. During World War I, these switchboard operators were sworn into the U.S. Army Signal Corps. Until 1977 they were officially categorized as civilian "contract employees" of the US Army. This corps was formed in 1917 from a call by General John J. Pershing to improve the worsening state of communications on the Western front. Applicants had to be bilingual in English and French to ensure that orders would be heard by anyone. Over 7,000 women applied, but only 450 women were accepted. Many of these women were former switchboard operators or employees at telecommunications companies. They completed their Signal Corps training at Camp Franklin, now a part of Fort George G. Meade in Maryland.
A telephone exchange, also known as a telephone switch or central office, is a crucial component in the public switched telephone network (PSTN) or large enterprise telecommunications systems. It facilitates the interconnection of telephone subscriber lines or digital system virtual circuits, enabling telephone calls between subscribers.
Grace D. Banker was a telephone operator who served during World War I (1917–1918) as chief operator of mobile for the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) in the U.S. Army Signal Corps. She led thirty-three women telephone operators known popularly as Hello Girls. They were assigned in New York to travel to France to operate telephone switch boards at the war front in Paris, and at Chaumont, Haute-Marne. They also operated the telephone switch boards at First Army headquarters at Ligny-en-Barrois, about 5 miles (8.0 km) to the south of Saint-Mihiel, and later during the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. After her return to civilian life, Banker and her team members were treated as citizen volunteers and initially not given recognition as members of the military. In 1919, Banker was honoured with the Distinguished Service Medal for her services with the First Army headquarters during the St. Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne Offensives, with a commendation.
Merle Egan Anderson was a member of the United States Army Signal Corps' Female Telephone Operators Unit during World War I. She is one of the first 447 female veterans of the U.S. Army. She is credited for persisting in the effort to gain the Operators Unit veterans' status, which was eventually signed into law by President Jimmy Carter in 1977.
Amy Jessica Marston is an English actress on screen and in theatre. She is known for her roles as Sylvia Sands in The Hello Girls, as Deborah in Rome, and as Jenny Rawlinson in EastEnders.
Sylvia Riley, better known by her pen-name Carol Lake, is an English author. She was the winner of the Guardian Fiction Prize in 1989 with Rosehill: Portrait from a Midlands City. She also wrote Switchboard Operators, upon which the BBC drama series The Hello Girls was based.
Joan Miller in Nelson, British Columbia, Canada was an actress. She moved to London, UK in 1931 to pursue a career in acting.
References
- 1 2 "The Hello Girls" – via www.imdb.com.
- ↑ Depository, Book. "Switchboard Operators : Carol Lake : 9780747534907". www.bookdepository.co.uk.
- ↑ "Weekly top 30 programmes - BARB". www.barb.co.uk.
- ↑ "The Hello Girls (TV Series 1996–1998)" – via www.imdb.com.