Nostalgic telegram service is proving popular in Leamington and Warwick

Nostalgic telegram service is proving popular in Leamington and Warwick

The last of my backlog of posts from 2021 features another piece of "obsolete" technology that is anything but, especially in Warwickshire it seems - the humble telegram.  And no, I don't mean the instant messaging app (about which I know little other than that it is an instant messaging app).  Long one of my favourite forms of archaic communication (as an aficionado of analogue machinery and typewriters especially, how could it not be?) reports of the telegram's demise - to paraphrase Mark Twain - have been grossly exaggerated, as I hope this post will go on to show.

While it is true that here in the U.K. British Telecom ceased offering traditional telegrams in the 1980s, as did Western Union in America, there are still several private companies and individuals in both these countries and dozens of others around the world striving to keep alive the romance and connectedness of a simpler age - albeit mainly now in the role of "greetings telegrams".

source - Wikimedia Commons

Telegrams Online is the oldest of the three such entities known to the author here in the U.K. (not including the chap in this lead article, to whom we shall come later), emerging out of the ashes of British Telecom's operation.  Although BT stopped providing standard telegraphy services in the Eighties, it continued to offer "telemessaging" - the ability to dictate a message to an operator over the 'phone, which was then transcribed and sent as a regular telegram - right up until 2003.  Only then did BT finally pull the plug, with Telegrams Online manfully (and womanfully) stepping up to fill the void.  Their website is delightfully old-school, looking like it hasn't been updated in those twenty years, but still appears fully functional (although I haven't gone through the whole process, so cannot speak authoritatively on that point - nor can I confirm the prices).  In any event, I am delighted to see that they still exist and hope that Telegrams Online will continue to provide telegrams to those who require them for the next 20 years and beyond.   

source - Wikimedia Commons

Going for almost as long as Telegrams Online, Imperial Telegrams has to my knowledge been in business since at least 2006.  Originally running their own website they have more recently moved under the Not On The High Street umbrella but this does not seem to have affected the quality of their offerings, which are very much of the "special occasion" variety and by far the most authentically vintage of those I have encountered.  For Imperial Telegrams go to the extra effort of printing the words on to individual strips of paper before sticking them to the telegram, just as would have been the case in its heyday (such as this 1962 message to scientist Francis Crick, above), as well as using genuine pre-decimal stamps on the hand-written envelope!  Quite the personalised service and very reasonable for what it is, considering the price of some generic greetings cards these days.         

The last of the UK-based "online" telegram providers that I am aware of is The Telegram Office, a relative new-comer to the scene having only been established in 2015.  Operating in a similar vein to Imperial Telegrams, The Telegram Office provides a selection of different templates for one to personalise albeit not to the same extent.  Nevertheless the effect is still a realistic one and the price is even more affordable although perhaps reflective of the more limited options available.

Official telegram services still exist in North America, I understand, provided by the company which took over from Western Union following its bankruptcy in 1991 - iTelegram.  Trading also as Telegrams Canada it offers a similar facility in that country and, indeed, to over 180 other countries around the world.  Very much the more traditional, basic telegram, it is still heartening to see that such an old-fashioned means of communication continues to have an important place in the world.

source - picryl

There is, of course, one other way you can send telegrams for a fraction of the cost of the aforementioned options - you can create one yourself!  It is far easier and less onerous than you might imagine, ironically thanks in part to its modern usurper - the Internet.  This admittedly wonderful invention has allowed like-minded individuals to upload various templates of different telegram designs that can be printed and in some cases edited on one's computer. 

source - Open Clipart/ j4p4n

Chief among these, perhaps somewhat surprisingly, are fans of American science fiction writer H. P. Lovecraft.  In particular it seems they enjoy role-playing and table-top games around the subject of his Cthulhu mythos; because of the period in which the stories were written/set, telegrams play an important part - hence why the H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society and the Mount Cthulhu gaming site provide excellent examples of telegram papers from both sides of the Atlantic.  Fully downloadable and in some cases editable they provide the perfect starting point for the creation of your own telegrams!  If Lovecraft is a bit too esoteric for your tastes, templates can also be found throughout t'web on various creative commons sites like Wikimedia and Open Clipart.  To add the finishing touch websites like 1001 Free Fonts offer a smorgasbord of suitable fonts in their Typewriter and Retro sections, in addition to those on the Lovecraft sites.

Leamington Optician raises funds for Guide Dogs with local telegram service

You need not bother with the latter however if, like me, you own one (or more!) actual working typewriters - in which case what's stopping you from just printing off a template and tapping out a message in the approved manner?!  This is clearly what occurred to Russell Peake of Warwickshire in the height of lockdown when, inspired by original telegrams kept by his own family and with everyone needing just that little extra bit of personal contact, he acquired a typewriter and a bicycle to start Spa Telegram.  As the newspaper reports of the time explain, the venture was set up partly to provide a still-important social interaction for the people of Warwick and Leamington Spa but also to raise money for Guide Dogs for the Blind.  Both laudable aims for which I congratulate Mr Peake and am very happy to see are continuing nearly three years later - for Spa Telegrams is still going strong.  By the look of things typewritten and hand-delivered telegrams are even now flying around the Warwickshire area (and on request by post further afield) - a testament to the enduring appeal of this personal, unpretentious form of communication in an otherwise digital world.    

***Have you sent or received a telegram recently?  Do you know of any other providers that I have missed?  Let me know in the comments!***

Hull’s cream-coloured phone boxes given Grade II-listed status

source - Wikimedia Commons/kitmasterbloke

Hull’s cream-coloured phone boxes given Grade II-listed status

Well here we go, straight back in the saddle with this latest article about a rare variant of an already-endangered piece of technology - the public call box.

In this instance the phone boxes in question are not the earlier, more famous Giles Gilbert Scott-designed glass-and-metal K2 to K6 series of red boxes but rather the later K8 design from the pen of architect Bruce Martin, which were introduced across Great Britain in the late 1960s to supplement the existing 50,000-odd K2 and K6 boxes that were still prevalent at the time.

source - Wikimedia Commons/Oxyman

Markedly different from the designs that had come before it, the K8 boasted a modern light and airy Sixties feel thanks to large single panes of glass bereft of any intricate metalwork.  Intended to be easier to repair and maintain, over 11,000 K8s were installed up and down the country - only replacing existing K2s and K6s where absolutely necessary.  While many continued in service over the next 20 years or so, the design ultimately never gained as much appeal as the iconic red boxes that came before it.  It's only really lasting claim to fame is that it sported a slightly different shade of crimson - "Poppy Red" - one which went on to become the standard colour and was retrospectively applied to all existing boxes throughout the country.  However, the design's supposed strength over its predecessors - its ease of maintenance - was ultimately outweighed by the frequency of repairs as a result of vandalism.  Allied to the fact that it actually cost more to manufacture than the older models, a great number were subsequently replaced by the (rightly) unloved KX-series following the creation of British Telecom after the privatisation of the GPO in the 1980s.   As of 2023, a mere fifty-odd K8s still exist around Britain - some, I'm pleased to note, already with listed status.

source - Wikimedia Commons/Tim Green

Rare K8 phone boxes in Hull awarded listed status

Unusual among these few remaining K8s are the handful still to be found in the city of Hull, which was (and still is) the only place in England where the telephone network was run by either the local council or a private provider and not the GPO/ BT.  As a result, all Hull's phone boxes were painted not the traditional red but a rather fetching shade of cream to reflect their independence from the national network.  Now I am pleased to see that nine of these surviving boxes have been given Grade-II listed status by Historic England, hopefully preserving them for future generations to at least see what we used - and sometimes still use - before the advent of the mobile telephone (for, I am delighted to note, these particular boxes continue to fulfil their original function, containing as they do working telephones which must also now be preserved in working order).  

I join with the Twentieth Century Society and the people of Hull in celebrating this decision, which gives me great hopes for the future of all the remaining 10,000 or so phone boxes in this country, that there will never come a time when we have none left.