Telephones

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Phone bell removed from lobby at Tinder Box Cottage

Photo by Margaret Courtman

The coming of the telephone

In 1932, only a small handful of telephone subscribers ¹ with addresses in the Helpston locality were listed in the Post Office phone book for the Peterborough area. None of the numbers listed were for Private lines.

As demand for phones increased in the village for both personal and business subscribers, additional poles and lines were erected. In 1948, lines were added along and across West Street for a distance of 240yards. ³

1958 Peterborough PO Phone book entries ⁴ for addresses in Helpston.

Initially in some cases, landline telephone users shared a party line until sufficient lines were created to offer a single use line.
As the population of the village grew so did the number of properties requiring telephones. In recent years, new digital services direct by underground cable have been installed and overhead lines have been upgraded from a copper wire to a fibre cable. Good service mobile networks are now the norm and some telephone users now prefer just to use their mobile phones in preference to having a landline.

1 PO Telephone Books – Ancestry.co.uk
2  Mr and Mrs Reginald Royston Scott lived at Tinderbox Cottage,  2 Broad Wheel Road as evidenced on deeds 1929.
3 Article in Peterborough Standard 12 March 1948. Thanks to the British Newspaper Archive
4 PO Telephone Books – Ancestry.co.uk