this won't mean a lot to most but...

[r.magnay]

Many of you, even if you lived in a rural area may not be familiar with the old party line. The basic idea was that a pair of wires would be run from the exchange to an area of the district and several phones would be on the one line. Your ring was a morse code based ring, for example, our number was 5H so our ring was four shorts being the morse code for H. one of our neighbours was 5S which was three shorts, the lady of the house used to spend a great deal of time on the phone so she was a bit of a stumbling block quite often.
When you wanted to make a call you would pick up the phone and say 'working' which served two purposes, one it was meant to be the method of finding out if the line was free but also as a diplomatic way of saying 'can you get off the line I need to use the phone!' It could be very frustrating sometimes. Of course the old manual exchange meant that even though no-one was supposed to listen in, it was in your best interest to say nothing on the phone that you didn't want made common knowledge!
When you had finished on the phone you hung up and spun the handle which gave one ring signifying that line was now free.
I found this one recently when we were going through mothers stuff after her death, she was the one who found it the most frustrating by not being able to use the phone.



“THE BLOODY PARTY LINE”

© Ross Magnay 25.3.2005

“Working are you working?” Gawd she’s on the bloody phone,
that phone is glued against her ear, she can’t leave it alone.
Well I’ll split a load of firewood and then I’ll try again,
By Gawd it’s dry I’d like to see an inch of bloody rain.

There’s the bloody ring off I’ll rip in and make a call,
When she is on your party line you can’t relax at all.
Where’s that bloody number it was here with all these things,
Oh no the phone is ringing and it’s three short bloody rings.

“Working are you working?” yep she’s on the bloody line,
I tell you what, I’d sort her out if she was bloody mine.
Don’t know what her old man eats, she has no time to cook,
Instead of whacking on the beef you reckon he’d be crook.

Time drags on and she still talks, it gets a lot less funny,
You’d reckon she would have to make, one trip to the dunny!
There’s the ring off grab the phone you can’t afford to wait,
‘Cause on a party line with her you cannot hesitate.

“Hello operator, yes I need to call the ‘smoke’,
Yeah the wife and kids are good and I employed a bloke.
The crops are good but thirsty, sheep and cattle doing fine,”
They all know the bloody lot, on the party line.

“Adelaide 22521 I’m calling for you now,
did you hear that Eric down the road, just bought a brand new plough?
You know Bob’s youngest daughter, has joined the puddin’ club,
young Arn from out at ‘Dry as Hell’ has headed for the scrub!”

“You will have to call back later, the ‘switch’ is full they said,”
“Later! How much later? I could well be bloody dead!
Six hours to make one bloody call, well isn’t that just fine?
And then instead of getting through I get a busy line!”

[alongtimegone]

Brilliant Ross. Your poem really sums it up even for one who has never experienced it. Still laughing, though I guess really not funny at the time.
Wazza

[Shelley Hansen]

Good one Ross! I remember the phone with the handle in the middle, but we lived in town so didn't have to deal with the party line. However my husband grew up on a farm and he tells many tales not unlike this one!!

Cheers, Shelley

[Jeff Thorpe]

Well said Ross.

Cheers, Jeff

[Neville Briggs]

We never had the party line, when I was young the phone was a public phone box 200m away up the road.
What you have described looks to me as that sense of community that perhaps has been lost in the technological age. ( albeit with a bit of sticky beaking thrown in )
When the NSW police hierarchy in the 1980's wanted to bring in the supposed new community program of " Neighbourhood Watch " the country cops scornfully told the Commissioner that neighbourhood watch was nothing new, it had been operating for donkey's ages in the bush.

[Terry]

G/day Ross

I remember the old party line well while out on the farm as a boy.

For people living in remote areas and farms, it was a bit like TV first when it first arrived.

Cheers Terry

[Maureen K Clifford]

Never experienced it Ross but heard stories from many who had - it's a time capsule of a poem - I enjoyed the read