This post was updated on 21 August 2025. Reason for update: My visit on that date to the Royal Signals Museum and the Trend 560 Teleprinter.
You can close down the table of contents below by clicking or touching the chevron down-arrow.
- Telex in The UK during World War II
- Telex at The Daily Mail Ideal Home Exhibition – General Post Office Exhibition Stand
- Three Tees Agency
- TRG Services
- 5-level Telex Murray Code
- Paper Tape Could Save The Day
- Creed Teleprinter No. 15
- Other Telex Machines I Remember
- ITT 6100 ADX Message Switching Unit
- How Message Rejects Were Handled
- Telex Routing Codes and Wild Telex Addressing
- Possible origin of the term "WILD" in computing and telecommunications
- A generic telex message example when using a message switching unit
- Breakdown of the telex header
- Early Keyboards and VDUs
- Store and Forward Telex in The UK
- The Demise of Telex in The UK and the Rise of Faxing and Emailing in the 1990s
This article is about my memories of telex in the UK, very much in a past life, the phase of which started in the early 1970s and ended in the early 1990s.
New related post: T15 Telex Connection With ChatGPT AI at Amberley Museum.
This article was updated 9th May 2025 Reasons for update: Added information about Publicising telex in the UK by the GPO and A generic telex message example when using a message switching unit.
Telex in The UK during World War II
The British Army in the United Kingdom 1939-45. ATS (Auxiliary Territorial Service) teleprinter operators at work at a London ATS Headquarters in May 1942.
Attribution: Console (Capt), War Office official photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
Although the photograph was taken before my time, I like the photo.
Related Posts:
Teletex System of Document Transfer Abandoned in The 1990s.
Telex World Letter – A 1980s Speedy Letter Delivery System.
Telex at The Daily Mail Ideal Home Exhibition – General Post Office Exhibition Stand
Publicising telex in the UK by the GPO
In the late sixties or very early seventies, I remember my mother taking me to the Daily Mail Ideal Home Exhibition at the Olympia building in Hammersmith, London. It was at this exhibition that I first came across teleprinters at the General Post Office (GPO) exhibition stand. The stand featured Creed Model 444 teleprinters, also known as T15 teleprinters. The purpose of having these teleprinters at the stand was presumably to publicise to businesses the advantages of having telex machines in their establishments. Another possibility was to gain interest among young people in pursuing a career as a teleprinter operator with the GPO.
There were two T15 teleprinters “wired up” to each other. I expressed interest and was directed to a teleprinter and invited to type a message. The GPO exhibition stand representative then took me to the other teleprinter and showed me the message I had sent. I may have received a copy of my message, but I am not certain. I remember the representative saying something like “not a bad effort”. Clearly, something “clicked”, which may have been the precursor to my career as a telex operator.
There is a photograph from 1960 of the GPO exhibition stand, possibly located at the Ideal Home Exhibition. The stand I saw years later may have looked similar. Source: Lightstraw. Online.
Does anyone else have memories of telex machines at the GPO stand at The Ideal Home Exhibition? Please let me know in the comments section below.
Three Tees Agency
In the early years of my career, The Three Tees Agency* had an excellent Saturday morning training school for telex operators. Their offices were at 110 Ludgate House, Fleet Street, in the City of London. The Three Tees was owned by a lovely lady called Janet Day, and I have fond memories of her and the team.
*The Three Tees Agency was a recruitment and temping agency for Telex Teleprinter and Telephone Operators. The name of this agency may also have been known as The Three Ts Agency.
TRG Services
I also worked as a temp for TRG Services (Trevor Ronald Gilbert was the owner), another recruitment agency for telephonists and telex operators. My temp controllers were Clive (head controller) and Janice. Both were great guys, and I have many happy memories of my time with this agency. TRG had their main office in King William Street in the City of London. After a few years, they moved to Lovat Lane, also in the City of London.
My time as a telex operator was characterised by an abundance of work for temp telex operators. I never had a permanent job throughout this time, and one of these temping jobs lasted for over three years!
The type of work was varied. One day, I could work in a small office on a single telex machine, while another assignment might be in a bank with multiple machines and many operators.
5-level Telex Murray Code
The associated image is of a reference card similar to one I used when learning the 5-level Murray code. The code represents the International Telegraph Alphabet. Image: User: Huestones with derivative work by User: TedColes, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.
If messages from the telex machine were to be relayed as separate messages to distant machines, the telex operator would have read the tape and identified the start and end of each message. The tape could then be torn off before and after those points. Each separate message on the paper tape could then be relayed to distant machines as necessary.
Paper Tape Could Save The Day
The ability to read tape was helpful in many cases. One scenario was the unattended telex machine. Telex messages were printed on continuous rolls of paper. The paper tape mechanism, when activated, produced a copy of all telex messages received on the tape.
If the paper roll ran short, there were no printed messages after that point. However, the paper tape had copies of each message.
The continuous roll of tape could be torn off, fed into a telex machine with plenty of paper roll, and a copy of all the messages could be printed in “local mode”. Local mode referred to the process of producing messages without a live connection to a remote machine.
Creed Teleprinter No. 15
Brian was an excellent tutor who ran The Three Tees training school. In time, I had mastered touch typing and tape reading, thus equipping me with skills that would keep me in constant work for the next 25 years or so.
The telex machine I learnt on at the training school was the Creed Model 444, otherwise known as the Teleprinter No. 15 and commonly referred to by telex operators as the T15.
The Creed Model 444 was introduced by the General Post Office (GPO) in 1966. Source: Creed & Company. Wikipedia. It superseded the Creed Model 7, referenced below.
Other Telex Machines I Remember
Creed Teleprinter No. 7
This teleprinter, commonly referred to by telex operators as the T7, was first introduced by the GPO in 1931.
The model was specifically produced for the start of the GPO’s telex in the UK service. Source: Hobbs, Alan G. Teleprinters for the radio amateur. Online.
This teleprinter has GPO badges, which can be seen on the left-hand side of the machine and under the dialling unit to the right of the machine. The GPO was the leading supplier of teleprinters to UK commercial enterprises.
British Telecom Cheetah Teleprinter
The British Telecom Cheetah Telex machine was a significant upgrade to the T15 model. To the best of my knowledge, this machine was introduced in the mid-1980s.
While telex terminals with VDU units had previously been available in the UK, I believe the Cheetah was the first British Telecom telex machine with an integrated screen and internal memory that could store messages for future retrieval and sending.
British Telecom 23B Teleprinter
The Model 23B was, in my opinion, a nasty piece of equipment to type on. The keyboard had no tactile resistance and felt much like the VDU keyboards I have referenced in the 6100 ADX section below.
I found typing on the Teleprinter Number 15 (referenced above) a far more pleasurable experience.
23B teleprinter Image: Richard Ash, CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons. The image has been cropped by South Coast View.
British Telecom Puma Teleprinter
The Puma was manufactured by Trend Communications. I saw many of these teleprinters during my temporary travels. I cannot comment as I have never had the chance to try one.
I believe this machine was introduced to the market in the early 1980s, and the machines I saw were always coloured grey.
Trend 560 Teleprinter
On an aside, the Royal Signals Museum in Blandford Camp, Dorset, tells us that the Trend teleprinters were the last teleprinters used by the Royal Signals. Source: History of Signalling In 100 Objects – The Trend Teleprinter. PDF file.
On 21 August 2025, I made a second visit to this fascinating museum and viewed a sand-coloured Trend 560 teleprinter on display. Interestingly, the associated description told me that the British Army commissioned some of these Trend teleprinters to be sand-coloured for use during the 1991 Gulf War.
The teleprinter shown above is described as a Trend 360 teleprinter and not a Trend 560 teleprinter. A member of the museum staff confirmed to me that the correct model number is the Trend 560 and that the description would be updated accordingly.
ITT 6100 ADX Message Switching Unit
In the early 1980s, I worked as a temp for three years at Brown & Root’s Wimbledon office in south-west London. This was a busy telex room dealing with the company’s worldwide oil and gas exploration.
The company had an ITT 6100 ADX message switching unit off-site in their Colliers Wood office, also located in southwest London. The 6100 ADX was linked to the telex room in Wimbledon, and telex messages there were inputted via VDU terminals with separate keyboards.
The 6100 ADX message switching exchange was introduced in 1979. Source: STC Corporate Milestones.
The telex operators in the Wimbledon office had no involvement in the behind-the-scenes operation of the ADX (short for Automatic Data Exchange) unit. One had to learn how to route a telex message purely by using a combination of destination routing codes and wild telex notation (see the section below for an explanation of these terms), and by adhering to correct syntax via the VDU unit.
This correct syntax allowed the ADX computer to automatically route a message to a distant telex subscriber anywhere in the world. If the distant telex machine was engaged, the ADX would store that message and automatically retry dialling the distant machine at pre-determined intervals.
How Message Rejects Were Handled
The ADX 6100 had a system for handling messages that the ADX could not route to their destination. A routing failure could have been caused by several different aspects. Some common reasons were that the distant teleprinter was out of order, engaged, or there were busy telex circuits en route. These “rejects”, as we used to call them, would display on one of the VDU terminals with a reason for rejection. The operator could then take remedial steps directly from their VDU to attempt a new transmission of the message.
This method was an efficient way of handling rejects. Another system I worked on (Format Communications) displayed rejects on a stand-alone printer. This process involved the operator tearing off the paper printout containing the reject and reject notifications, moving to a VDU, retrieving the rejected message from the system, and then making a new attempt to send the message. That was a more time-consuming process.
Telex Routing Codes and Wild Telex Addressing
Routing codes typically consisted of a minimum of three letters previously input into the system. Each routing code had been programmed to relate to and send a telex message to a specific telex subscriber anywhere in the world. For instance, a routing code of LIS might denote a telex office in Lisbon, Portugal. In contrast, a routing code of MAN might refer to a telex office in Manchester, UK. In modern computing, we could refer to routing codes as shortcodes.
A Wild Telex address (usually inputted into the VDU as WILD, WLDTLX, WTX, or WTLX, depending on the system in use) was used as a prefix to a telex number for sending a message when no routing code had been previously assigned. A combination of Wild Telex and routing codes could be entered into the VDU terminal if the requirement was to send a message to multiple recipients.
The above-mentioned wild telex system notation served as prefixes to signal the system to interpret the subsequent numerical string as a full telex number for routing.
Possible origin of the term “WILD” in computing and telecommunications
Wild often refers to a “wildcard” or a flexible, non-specific indicator used to match a range of values or, in this case, to signal that a full telex number would follow rather than a predefined routing code. The concept of a “wildcard” predates modern computing and was used in early data processing and telecommunications to denote a variable or unrestricted entry.
A wildcard in card games stands for any other card its holder wishes to name. It is possible that the early creators of message switching systems decided that the wildcard in card games perfectly suited the idea of a telex operator inputting any telex number after “WILD” or any of its variants mentioned above.
A generic telex message example when using a message switching unit
From memory, here is what a telex message header and a short telex message might have looked like:
HOBERLIN HOPARIS HOATHENS
WTX 22375 COMPANYLON G
.ACCOUNTSLONDON
DATE: 09 MAY 1981
ATTN: FRED ANOTHER
A FICTITIOUS TELEX IN THE UK. LOREM IPSUM IS SIMPLY DUMMY TEXT OF THE PRINTING AND TYPESETTING INDUSTRY. LOREM IPSUM HAS BEEN THE INDUSTRY'S STANDARD DUMMY TEXT EVER SINCE THE 1500S, WHEN AN UNKNOWN PRINTER TOOK A GALLEY OF TYPE AND SCRAMBLED IT TO MAKE A TYPE SPECIMEN BOOK. IT HAS SURVIVED NOT ONLY FIVE CENTURIES, BUT ALSO THE LEAP INTO ELECTRONIC TYPESETTING, REMAINING ESSENTIALLY UNCHANGED. IT WAS POPULARISED IN THE 1960S WITH THE RELEASE OF LETRASET SHEETS CONTAINING LOREM IPSUM PASSAGES, AND MORE RECENTLY WITH DESKTOP PUBLISHING SOFTWARE LIKE ALDUS PAGEMAKER INCLUDING VERSIONS OF LOREM IPSUM.
JASON ANOTHERSource: Personal experience of the post author.
The full stop (period) was part of the telex message header and indicated to the message switching unit that there were no more destinations to follow. Some companies required operators to append extra information immediately after the full stop to show which company department the telex message should be attributed to and if any charges should be levied against that department.
If you notice any errors in my message example above, please let me know in the comments section below.
Breakdown of the telex header
HOBERLIN HOPARIS HOATHENS are fictitious examples of company head offices in Berlin, Paris and Athens. WTX 22375 COMPANY G is a fictitious example of a wild telex address in London UK .ACCOUNTSLONDON shows that the telex message was to be attributed to the accounts department in London.
Early Keyboards and VDUs
These VDUs and keyboards were incredibly frustrating pieces of equipment to work with. All the VDU screens in the telex room I worked in were seriously affected by screen burn-in caused by an idle cursor positioned slap-bang in the middle of the screen. The keyboard had no tactile resistance, which was usual with many keyboards of the time.
There was no automatic word wrap, so the operator had to manually insert new lines as needed. Bizarrely, there was a dedicated word wrap key. This feature allowed a proficient touch typist to type at top speed, disregarding any new lines required, and then press the word wrap key. This sequence of events would then automatically wrap text. However, you still had to manually insert extra new lines to format the text into paragraphs. Using this method, an operator could increase their typing speed.
Store and Forward Telex in The UK
Many manufacturers supplied automatic telex routing equipment for the UK market (such as the ADX 6100 mentioned above), and the method of routing these messages by an operator was similar, regardless of the system used. A generic name for these systems was STOFOR (Store and Forward), although another generic name was MSX (Message Switching Exchange). Other STOFORs I remember operating include CASE by Computer and Systems Engineering and Format Communications.
A Photograph of a Small Telex Office
This lovely associated photograph shows a small telex room at the Farraline Park (Temporary) Police Station in Inverness, in 1975.
To the right of the picture, in the foreground and middle ground, are two Teleprinter No. 15 machines. In the background, a male operator is sitting by a partially obscured Teleprinter No. 7 machine.
Image: Dave Conner via Flickr. 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0).
The author of the photograph gives interesting details about this scene, and it’s well worth visiting the above web address for the full story of this telex room.
The Demise of Telex in The UK and the Rise of Faxing and Emailing in the 1990s
The development of high-speed fax machines in the early nineties considerably impacted the availability of work for telex operators. By this time, most of the temping jobs I was assigned to involved operating fax machines. At the same time, private commercial electronic mail networks were increasing rapidly, further diminishing the availability of telex work. It was time to look for a new career…
Closure by British Telecom of Telex in The UK
From 2004, BT no longer offered a telex service to new customers, and telex in the UK was discontinued in 2008. Source: Chenery John. The Telex Service. Lightstraw. Online.
The associated image is of Keybridge House on South Lambeth Road, Vauxhall, London. The building had previously housed the Post Office’s Telex Operator Centre (TOC).
Keybridge House housed significantly upgraded automatic telex switching exchange equipment. This new facility at Keybridge superseded the older telex switching equipment that had previously been located at the Fleet building in Farringdon, London. Source: Alain Hendrich in the comments section below this post.
Image: Stephen Richards / Keybridge House, South Lambeth Road (1) via Wikimedia.
Telex in The UK at Connected Earth at Amberley Museum
As mentioned above, most of the teleprinters referenced in this article are displayed at the Connected Earth exhibition at Amberley Museum in West Sussex. This exhibition has a fascinating feature about telegraphy and telex in the UK.
Kelvedon Hatch Secret Nuclear Bunker
The associated photograph is of telex machines at the Kelvedon Hatch Secret Nuclear Bunker near Brentwood, Essex, in the UK. The picture was kindly provided to me by Patrick Sedgwick, who has made valuable comments on this post in the comments section below.
You can visit the bunker museum, but please check the opening hours using the website link below.
Kelvedon Hatch Secret Nuclear Bunker – Official Website.
As previously mentioned, this article about telex in the UK relies on my memories, some of which date back over 40 years. Over the span of many decades, I may have got some facts wrong. If you spot any errors in this article, I would be grateful if you could contact me.
I would love to hear your memories of telex in the UK. Perhaps you remember me? My name is Andrzej. Leave a comment below.
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Thank you very much for the comments and replies concerning the Telex service in the UK. I hope that I can add a little bit more information.
1) as several people have said, the nuclear bunker community were a major user of a Telex-like system, but it is important to realise that this did not form part of the “commercial” Telex system. Instead, it was part of a Home Office-managed system called the ECN (Emergency Communications Network) which supported both speech and data and operated over a vast network of BT Private Circuits, hopefully routed to avoid major conurbations and assumed nuclear strike targets, and also to have a degree of self-healing in it’s routing assuming many links would be destroyed. The system originally used Creed mechanical teleprinters, but was upgraded to use VDUs and dot-matrix printers. In addition to central government and military sites, the system was installed at those “secret nuclear bunkers” previously referred to but also the “County Main” Bunkers and their standbys in each County. The system never reached anything like the level of popularity amongst the civil Emergency Planning community that the Home Office had hoped, largely due to the military style of message formatting that had been adopted, but mainly because CEOs and senior staff of large local authorities had indicated by this time that they were no longer prepared to go to a bunker to manage a peacetime emergency, but instead planned to use familiar facilities within their own LA buildings.
2) Although the growth of fax and then email has correctly been stated as major reasons for the demise of Telex, I cannot find any reference to the political problems this created for BT during the transition period. It should be remembered that at that time the inclusion of a Telex address in headed notepaper could literally be worth it’s weight in gold to a company, particularly if they wished to do business abroad. However, the cost of using the service and in particular the cost of the Telex machine itself were beyond the means of many small companies. To BT sales staff like myself selling a Telex service generated very useful commission, and the ability to offer it to customers was jealously guarded.
Then BT came along with it’s fledgling Telecom Gold email service, which soon added an ability (via a slightly cludgy but still perfectly effective message formatting protocol) to send and receive Telexes via the same hardware they were using to send and receive emails (and remember that in many organisations this was often the first personal computer that they had purchased). The service still allowed customers the all-important Telex address on their letter headings.
Picture then the intrepid TG salesperson who had just sold a Telex service into a company of any size at essentially no extra cost from their email service, when hovering in the wings was a BT Major Account Manager (regarded in much of BT as only one slight step down from God himself) who had just quoted that company for the provision of a traditional Telex service which would have earned him enough commission to pay for his next holiday in Spain.
I have an almost endless supply of anecdotes of BT/TG shenanigans from this period, happily to share these if you contact me at [email address redacted to stop poster being spammed].
Hi Bob, thanks for your insight into Telecom Gold and teleprinters in nuclear bunkers. I see from TELECOM GOLD – A Quick Guide on the samhallas website, that this service was, as you state, compatible with the telex service. Are you able to tell me if Telecom Gold was also compatible with the Teletex service (not to be confused with Teletext), which was offered to customers at around the same time? (I have a separate post about teletex at https://www.southcoastview.co.uk/news/teletex-system/ ) As far as I can see on the internet, there is no mention of this. I never saw a single Telecom Gold (or Teletex) installation during my many years of telex temping. I’m thinking that perhaps TG computers might have been situated in secretary’s offices rather than in telex rooms. Are you also able to tell me if the take-up of the TG service in the UK was limited or high?
wow I came across this while searching around, thanks for the memories, I started work in 1988 for NatWest as an office junior, which involved a host of telex work, Cheetahs and Pumas, great days. Moved over to stockbrokers in 1989, and had banks of telex machines running comms for them, using that neat trick of running the tape through the bank of machines to repeat the same message over and over to counterparties.
A short stint with Three Tees, and then a move into technical support. The early exposure to keyboard and screen helped a lot!.
Thanks again Andrzej.
I’m so pleased you liked the post, Mat. I loved that tape running trick too. Even more cool when the banks of machines with tape went round multiple corners. Sounds like you made good career progression.
I was at the secret nuclear bunker today with my friend and they have a room with lots of the T15 and the cheetah 85 and 87 models. Me and my friend were trying to work out how they worked, my search brought me here. It’s amazing that you can go somewhere and still touch these machines, I imagine they are worth a lot. Anyway, great article. Many thanks.
Wow! Which bunker did you go to? I Googled it and there are at least three: Kelvedon Hatch Secret Nuclear Bunker, Secret Nuclear Bunker in Troywood in Scotland, and Hack Green Secret Nuclear Bunker in Cheshire. I need to visit at least one of these. I’m pleased you liked the article.
If Ally went to the Kelvedon Hatch bunker, there is indeed a fine display of telex machines there, preserved in the state they were left in when the bunker ceased military operations decades ago. I would attach a photo, but have not found a way of doing that on this reply platform… maybe I need new glasses. 🙂
Hi Patrick, Thanks very much. If you go to my contact page (link at the foot of this page) and send me an email, I will reply to you from my email address. You could then send me an image by email. No glasses needed. I don’t put my email address on the website to keep clear of spam. I appreciate that I need to have some way for people to upload images and I will investigate a solution – many thanks for the idea.
I worked for London Inland Telegrams, Blackfriars in 1978. It was my first job, and one of the most fun jobs that I ever had.
Hi Andrzej, I remember Three Tees Agency and Harry Chambers in Fleet Street very well from the 1970’s. I did an apprenticeship as a trainee telegraphist with Western Union Cables in Gt. Winchester Street and left once completed to work for an insurance company in the City. I also did some part time Telex jobs for Harry to get some extra money while I was at the insurance company. I got the opportunity for a job in ‘The Print’ when I turned 21 with AAP/Reuters and worked on the 5th floor of the Reuters Building for a couple of years. It was all a mixture of straight Telex and Tape. In the Print we would have competitions amongs the keyboard operators to see who could keep the smallest loop of tape while bashing out on the newswire at 60+_wpm. I also had an elder brother who did a similar role for The Sun about the same time. While I was with the insurance company the T15 was on the scene which was aimed at Secretaries but didn’t really catch on in that industry, having a four level keyboard they weren’t popular. I moved onto a major bank after the print job and spent many years as a Telex Operator and Supervisor before being made redundant but just around the corner was the birth of the Internet where it was a good advantage if you could type quickly and accurately. I stayed in the IT sphere until retirement seven years ago. Happy days.
Hi Joe, it’s nice to hear your memories from times bygone. I agree, happy days indeed. Several ex-forces operators told me they did not like the four-level keyboards but had to retrain to keep themselves in work. In the late 1990s I passed a City & Guilds C++ programming course. My fellow students used to call me a code jockey because I could type so fast! It didn’t lead to a career in programming but I believe the logic helped me in designing web sites such as this one. It’s nice to read that like other commenters you have happy memories!
I recently came across this site. Thank you Andrzej for some lovely memories of telex and photos of equipment! My own association with telex was limited to the mid-1980s when I headed up BT’s telex operator service in Fleet Building, variously known as Intelex or Telex Manual Services. We had over 200 telex operators and about 25 OT (Overseas Telegraph) supervisors connecting calls within the UK and across the globe and as well as providing directory enquiry and general enquiry services and later our own Telex Bureau. The Fleet equipment, installed in 1963, was getting old, unreliable and difficult to fix. In addition to operations, my role was to introduce a new facility called the Telex Operator Centre (TOC) in Keybridge House in Vauxhall. That opened successfully and we improved customer service significantly. The downside in some ways is that we reduced our operator workforce by about 50%. I remember the staff of Fleet and TOC fondly, very professional and service oriented. It was very sad when TOC finally closed along with BT’s automatic telex services. We had not recruited for many years, so many of the operators were “of a certain age”. I always hoped that those who wished or needed to carry on working were able to find alternative roles. For me, it was certainly one of the more interesting and enjoyable periods in my time with BT.
Thanks, Alain. A lot of information from someone “in the know”. Valuable information for ex-operators, most of whom I think would not know this. My understanding now is that Keybridge House housed the automated telex service and took over from the manual service at Fleet. I will now update my post precisely referencing the role of Keybridge House.
I used to work for Three Tees Agency/TRG for about five years in London. I used the Cheetah and Puma telex machine. I always had a job. I also learned out to do swift when I was at a bank as well as telex. I worked in lots of different organisations including sothebys, Mills and Boon ( I met Mr boon). I have fond memories of the friendly staff at Three Tees in Fleet st, I had to go there every week to sort my timesheet. I worked for a few years and then left to travel and work in Australia. coming back was hard as it was difficult to find a telex job. I ended up working in travel. It was a great time. I didn’t have any major office politics as I never stayed long enough and doing telex was a pretty easy and enjoyable no stress job. I do wonder what ever happened to the telex operators when companies stopped using telex machines.
Thank you for the lovely memories, Eva. We had computer experience once VDUs came in so it was fairly easy for us to transition to related jobs. I suspect most operators did well in other careers once telex ended.
I worked for three commodity brokers and then moved to an American oil company that had a VDU based system. Stayed for five years and moved to a Japanese bank, also did SWIFT work but I could see the wrong on the wall. At the time Mercury Communications were heavily recruiting and I secured a role with them but took a gamble as I went for less salary. It paid off and I gained a couple of promotions, doubling my salary within 18 months and moved to a night/day shift roster in their fault centre. Stayed 15 years and took a voluntary redundancy, having grown tired of commuting into London. Worked locally for Openreach for a while (shocking company) and now happily retired.
Thanks for your comment, Dave. It does look like for many of us the demise of old technology worked out for the better.
I remember using the Cheetah Telex in the early 1980s within Merseyside Police. I remeber the paper rolls were multi layered / carbon copies – maybe 4 of 5 layers thick from memory. Green bordered copies to CID, Yellow to Chief Superintendent, red to Divisional Admin. The machine would be in use constantly and there were short codes to send to all stations and departments individually. More often than not lazy operators, usually Constables or CID rookies, would just use the short code to send to ALL machines force wide! I think they must have had interests in the paper roll suppliers. Thanks for the memories.
Many thanks for your memories, Chris. I did a quick Google search for “ply telex paper” and it is still possible to get hold of it. Up to 5 ply!
Amazing that paper is still available. The colours were along the edges. I am confident it was the 5 ply or more we used. Tonnes of the stuff!. Brings back memories
I worked for three tees for some years…including going to remote places I London ad I had a motorbike. Long memories. Just fortunate that I joined an American Bank and ended up as a dealer…it seems that A.I. Will now put all dealers into redundancy.
Sounds like it was a good career move, Gabe. Congratulations!
Was there also an agency called Telesupport or am I imagining it? I trained on a weekly day off from my job at my wife’s stepdads comms room. When I had basically got the hang I registered with, I think, TRG but at the time they had an office in Eastcheap – if it wasn’t them it was another agency. This was in early 1979. Shortly afterwards they got me an interview at a Commodity Brokers in Mincing Lane and thankfully the Comms Manager was happy to take me on with my slow speed. Moved to Supervisor and had a great 3 years before moving to a smaller broker who went under due to breaching oil trade regs with Iran. Then temped at an oil company in Marylebone before being taken on permanently and stayed 5 years on shifts before moving to a Japanese bank back in the City for 2 years until 1989 where I could see the writing on the wall for Telex work. I managed to secure a job with a Telecommunications company as an engineer and progressed gradually over a 15 year spell with them and 4 years elsewhere. Took a voluntary redundancy and saw out my working life with local companies, having had quite enough of commuting.
Hi Dave, I don’t recall an agency called Telesupport. TRG’s first offices were in King William Street corner with Eastcheap. At some stage, they moved a little further east to Lovat Lane, which runs south of Eastcheap. During later stages of their existence they also had an office in St Paul’s Churchyard.
It was probably Lovat Lane then. I think they put me up for most, if not all, of my Telex jobs, but the first Commodity Brokers and the oil company were two of the greatest places I’ve worked. They were great workplaces and great socially.
Hallo Andrzej. Saw your article on teleprinters and thought I’d say thank you for bringing back some good memories. I was a temp myself, trained by Harry Chambers at Chambers Communications but also had two permanent jobs in companies that no longer seem to exist ! I managed to get into naughty old Fleet Street by the back door and worked for two news agencies and two newspapers before being made redundant in the middle 1990s. After that I did some temp work (mainly docfax) through Three Tees. I then did some Christmas casual work for Royal Mail and was offered full-time work with them. That was 1997 and I’m still with them. Thanks again for the article — it was nice strolling down memory lane.
Chambers Communications was well known in chats with operators, although I didn’t work for them. I think all these telex emplyment agencies didn’t smell the coffee and diversify in the nineties and had to close down. I’m pleased you enjoyed recalling the memories, John.
Thank you for this article, Andrzej. I too worked as a temp Telex operator in the early 1970s, including through the Three T’s and TRG agencies. Lovely to revisit those memories by reading your article.
Many thanks for posting, Patrick and I’m pleased you enjoyed going back down memory lane.