Quote:
Originally Posted by Station X
The instructions were to dial 100 and ask the operator for the international operator. You'd then be connected to the international exchange in London and sometimes wait literally hours for the international operator to answer.
Years later I learned that the international operators were in the habit of sleeping on the night shift or playing cards.
|
In some telephone areas you used different numbers to directly access the International Operator for different countries, e.g. 107 for North America. You might still have to wait ages for an answer or you sometimes were answered straight away. Later the International Operator code became 155 as it is now, and a second (now discontinued) code of 158 was used in the 1980's for the more obscure destinations.