OUT, finally, went the “rather antique” telephone exchange that Glasgow District Council had been relying on, and in came a brand-new system called the SL-1, courtesy of British Telecom.
At one time, there had been sixty British Telecom engineers rewiring the Chambers in readiness for the new system, in what was the largest installation of its kind in Scotland. New departments had also to be brought onto the switchboard, and systems had to be provided for 13 area housing offices.
The result of the SL-1, said the Glasgow Herald, was that the City Chambers was now alive with the sound of bleeping instead of the telephone bells that switchboard personnel had grown accustomed to. Indeed, the story went that one of the old-style switchboards was about to find its way to the People’s Palace.
The handover of the new £1 million system took place at the end of March 1984. It was good news for Gordon Hellyar, photographed above right with Ken Barnes, the telecom officer at the City Chambers. Mr Hellyar, the telecommunications officer at the council, had spent the last two years organising the changeover, painstakingly asking each department for its telephone requirements then working with British Telecom to make it happen. “We have spent a lot of money,” Mr Hellyar declared, “but now we can offer a much better service and are able to control costs a lot more.”
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