My first proper job in 1979 was with a Canadian shipping line, Cast Containers, which ran a North Atlantic container service between Antwerp, Montreal, and the Great Lakes. On my first day, I was thrown into a small office with a phone, a copy of the Yellow Pages, and a notepad marked ‘TELEX’ with sections such as TO, FROM, and MESSAGE for me to fill in. My job was to cold call manufacturing companies around the country, identify the shipping or export manager, and persuade him to see one of our sales executives. I would then scribble a message on the telex pad for whichever office could handle it, then stroll over to the pretty young telex girl who would type my message into one of the many clattering machines in the mysterious Telex Room. It was out of bounds to most of us, and all I could hear during the day was the chugging of endless telexes being sent and received, with the telex girl occasionally coming out for air with reams of ticker tape dangling around her ample chest. Some sights you simply never forget.
Phone And Telex Were All We Had Back Then
Everyone in the office was assigned a three-letter telex code based on their initials, and once I had sent my first telex to Montreal, Chicago, or maybe London, I can still remember the excitement of receiving my first reply, which looked very much like a telegram. Here’s an example:
Clearly, in 1979, all we had were phones and telex – fax machines were around the corner – so we lived in a very manual world. Soon, I became very good at cold calling, was given my own desk opposite one of the pretty secretaries, and was scribbling telexes with gay abandon and the phone glued to my ear all day. It was an exciting time, and within a year, I was given a company car, an expense account, and sent down to London to prey on exporters in the south east of England. The golden rule was the three Ps – phone, pee, and park. With no mobile phones, we always needed to know where the red public phone boxes were, always to use a restroom when located, and to park without the car being towed away – that actually happened on my very first day in London! Living in a manual world had its pros and cons, so being on the road, I was untraceable unless I phoned in and dictated a telex, with appointments kept in a pocket diary. There weren’t many downsides because it was a much simpler world back then, and life moved more slowly, even though one could conduct a live instant chat by telex if it was urgent.
I still keep in touch with some colleagues from those halcyon days, and we communicate via WhatsApp using telex code!
My shipping career never experienced the advent of fax, email, and mobile phones, for which, in many ways, I’m grateful, because the pace of life and ‘insta-post’ media has changed everything and not necessarily for the better.
Did you ever use a telex?
—
