Doctor Shifty has been busy

I was working at Hanging Rock years ago and we had a party line and you
could guarantee that when the phone rang, everyone on the party line would
pick the phone up and listen, even if the call wasn't for them.
You would know who it was for,
one long- two short, ....two long -three short, and so on

 

You must have been richer George, we couldn't afford a horse

 

Looxury...

 

I asked this question a month or so back and some one said that he puts
something about archive x in his posts to stop archiving but it seems to
have the effect of a lot of people not able to read his posts.

 

My grandfather used to curse at this old biddy up the road who used to
do that... it wasn't very common on our party line (and you could tell
because there was a click sound).

G-S

 

Was that you on "OUR" party line ???

 

Ahh, now I unnerstand.
Ta.

 

Not unless you lived 40 kms north of Bendigo near Dingee...


G-S

 

I would hate to be stretched by the proverbials with one tied to Hanging
Rock and the other tied to Dingee Pub on the corner of the "S" bend

Been on a couple of poker runs to Dingee and that was the highlight of the
week for the townspeople of Dingee

 

You had a telephone in your house? Wow!
Local street boxes in my home town were only for local calls. You had
to go to a bunch of boxes at the PO to make a trunk call. Or know some
exalted rich person who had a phone in their house. No dial up either.
All operated connected. My parents got a home phone after I started
work, probably about 1968. We got our phone in 1971.

Theo

 

Your accommodation was Dingee?

Theo

 

Your accommodation was Dingee?

Theo

*******************************

The whole area has been termed as Dingee
That's probably why Geoff moved out of the place

 

My grandfather had some taxis and hire cars in Bendigo so I guess he
needed a phone on the family farm so he could be contacted but it was
mainly used for farm and family stuff from memory.

There was only one phone booth in Dingee and that was at the local post
office, I don't remember if it only did local calls or not (Dingee had 2
digit numbers so there wasn't much to local).

My grandfather had an extension of his work phone at his house from some
time in the 30's, my father had a home phone in the early 50's.

I never thought of my family as 'exalted rich people', we lived in a
generic run down weatherboard farm house with some milking cows the same
as our neighbours.

In retrospect I realize that my grandfather ran and my a fair sized
small business (by country town standards anyway) but that didn't really
effect my life 3 generations down the family tree to be honest.


G-S

 

The whole town was Dingee

(it really was... I don't think that place *ever* looked new or shiny).


G-S

 

No I moved out of the place because whilst I enjoy small country towns
as a rule... you can only look at the same 2 streets for so long before
you start going stir crazy.


G-S

 

Two streets.....two streets.....where did they get the other one from
You are not referring to the railway line as a street are you ??

 

Even now, there are only about 160 phones in the total Dingee district

Why?....he drove taxis and you have upgraded to driving a bus

 

The 'two streets' I was referring to were the "Bendigo/Pyramid Hill rd"
and the "Dingee/Rochester rd".

There are actually a couple of other tracks around the area those two
intersect but I wouldn't call them streets (not even by tiny country
town standards).


G-S

 

My cousin has the (remaining) taxi licenses, half have been sold off.

The bus company came from my parents work (about 50% of it in size) and
the balance from us, not from my grandparents farm or business.


G-S

 

I was being a bit facetious Geoff