More early memories by Tom Walder

As I am one of the oldest Pratswalkers (the oldest actually) I thought I would follow what seems to be the blog trend starting in the distant past.
At the start of my GPO career, political correctness even in those bygone days flourished and because my father was SW1 O I/C Eastbourne Manual Exchange it was decided I couldn't start there!
So at the tender age of 16 in August 1944 I was commanded to report to Bernard Stone O I/C Lewes Manual Exchange.
I couldn't believe my luck all those telephone operators some young some not so young and I was going to work among them changing cords etc. Mind you some of the supervisors seemed to be as old as my mother at the time!
As this was towards the end of the war there was also a female engineer assistant.These ladies were recruited in quite large numbers as a lot of engineers had been called up into the forces.
This was the start of my training and I was known as a Y2YC (more abbreviations- Youth Two Year Course)