Telegrams, toll calls and terrific piles of mail

It’s almost Christmas Day and families are waiting on the postie’s whistle. We’re back in the 20th century and the Palmerston North Chief Post Office is a hive of activity.

Seeing the derelict, burnt out building, it can be easy to forget the vibrance the old post office on the corner of The Square and Main Street in Palmerston North once had.

With the building’s broad role of post office, savings bank and telephone exchange, the post office was a major employer in the city from 1906 up until its closure in 1988.

However, one particular event created a kind of joyous chaos at the Palmerston North Chief Post Office and offered many Palmerstonians summer work – Christmas.

On July 1, 1925, the Palmerston North Post Office was constituted a Chief Post Office. This meant the territory covered under its jurisdiction was large. This included to Foxton in the west, Manakau in the south and Bulls in the north.

Dannevirke and Pahīatua were also included. Therefore, approximately 100 offices came under the jurisdiction of Palmerston North. But it was the main city site that saw the most activity and at Christmas that activity created an all-hands-on-deck situation.

Up the stairs of the Chief Post Office, the telephone exchange handled the Christmas toll calls.

In December, 1953, Christmas combined with the impending royal visit, meaning the demand on the toll exchange became overwhelming.

On December 22, 1953, the toll exchange handled about 100 toll calls that were placed to Wellington before 8.40am and still were waiting to be connected at noon.

Callers to Auckland waited for three hours to be connected, and it was an hour-and-a-half for New Plymouth. The following days continued to have similar demands. The limited toll lines and personnel struggled to cope the demand.

Next to the telephone exchange, was the telegraph office. Delivering telegrams to the citizens of Palmerston North could be a lucrative summer job. The pay was good and long hours could be offered to those who wanted them.

As a young telegram delivery boy Malcolm Ward remembers weddings and Christmas being particularly busy. After receiving the telegrams upstairs next to the telephone exchange the delivery personnel would set off on their push bikes.

Ward’s brother Trevor also delivered telegrams but as he was older he had the use of the post office’s motor scooters.

Summer weddings meant an influx of telegrams. The head dispatcher always knew what time the receptions started so the telegrams could be delivered just before the reception for the best man to read.

At Christmas, telegrams were often last minute greetings, and it was often school children that would deliver those throughout the community.

But it was the titanic piles of Christmas mail and parcels that created the most joy, chaos and summer employment.

On a normal day in the 1950s the mailroom would handle about 25 000 letters. However, on December 17, 1951, 120,000 letters were processed through the mail room.

At night floodlights lit up the yard at the rear of the post office where an increased staff sorted the gigantic volume of second-class mail which overflowed from the mailroom onto trestle tables set up under the lights.

The on December 23, 1952, described how 870, 000 letters passed through the post-marking machine at the Chief Post Office from the beginning of December 1952.

To keep the post-marking machine working efficiently the envelopes needed to be manually separated into sizes first. Any oddlyshaped envelopes were stamped by hand. At Christmas these tasks would often be handled by additional staff – often the post office staff’s children.

The posties would leave the post office with a supply of mail as large as they could carry. Overflow bags were delivered to various points throughout the city by additional staff for the posties to collect when they could.

Normally 30 overflow bags were sent out but on December 16, 1953, there were 140. In the late 1960s to early 1970s, Don Morgan remembers working as a linesman for the post office but at Christmas he would volunteer to help with the Christmas parcel run.

He began with delivering the overflow bags, then loaded parcels. One particular memory was a delivery to a house in Savage Crescent where he dropped a parcel in the van and broke a bottle of brandy. The van continued to stink for a number of days.

With the exploding numbers of deliveries high school children could be assured of work as Christmas helpers. In the early 1970s a young assistant postie could earn a respectable $36 for a 20-hour week during the two weeks before Christmas.

Peter Evans remembers beginning at 8am in the sorting room and then delivering around Botanical Rd from Pioneer Highway all through the streets, including Monrad. The shift usually finished around noon.

At Christmas one postie would deliver the Christmas cards and another would deliver the general mail. Inside Palmerston North homes, the families listened in anticipation for the postie’s whistle that let householders know that the mail had been delivered. Particularly at Christmas, the children would rush to the mailbox at the high-pitched sound.

Historian Margaret Tennent recently explained to the Palmerston North City Council that the Palmerston North Chief Post Office held significance as part of what we call our ‘‘memory scape’’. It is part of people’s experience and memories of Palmerston North.

The concept of ‘‘memory scape’’ attaches people to their place, it is a linchpin of identity. It was a place important to the city’s economy and the employment of its citizens.

What is clear, the memories of this place are still vivid for those who worked and visited there.

One particular memory was a delivery to a house in Savage Crescent where he dropped a parcel in the van and broke a bottle of brandy. The van continued to stink for a number of days.