Telemessages?

[G6Tanuki]

Did anyone ever receive a Telemessage?

[These were the early-1980s replacement for Telegrams: the idea being that you called an expensive phone-number and dictated your message, which was transcribed and then transmitted [precise mechanism undisclosed] to a location supposedly close to the intended recipient's postcode - where it got printed, put in an envelope [first class postage] and dispatched by the usual Royal Mail postal service].

I remember Terry Wogan disparaging this on his Radio2 show, saying that some new centenarian will be receiving a "Telemassage" from Her Majesty the Queen.

From http://www.lightstraw.co.uk/ate/tass/telegraph1.html - "Telemessages superseded the inland telegram service on 30th September 1982."

I was once sent a Telemessage. One of my clients *really* wanted to get in touch with me over the christmas/new-year break. Alas the address they sent the Telemessage to was one we'd vacated a few months earlier - and their yellow-envelope only came to light when the landlords were clearing-out the offices to accomodate new tenants.

Fax totally-obsoleted the Telemessage concept in a couple of years.

[Scimitar]

They were used by one of my suppliers in the early days to send "Threatograms" for unpaid bills!

[paulsherwin]

I think they were largely a PR job to deflect complaints when the GPO wanted to get rid of the (hopelessly uneconomic) telegram service.

[G6Tanuki]

Originally Posted by paulsherwin

I think they were largely a PR job to deflect complaints when the GPO wanted to get rid of the (hopelessly uneconomic) telegram service.

I'd agree with this! The smart people within GPO would have seen the inevitable privatisation on the horizon and would have done all they could -[within their public-service-mandate constraints] to realign the business to cope with the future-reality (which didn't include telegrams).

In the early-80s there was a postal-strike. Me and a couple of friends imported several thousand fax-machines [non-BABT-approved] from Korea. We sold or rented them to businesses who *needed* to communicate, and ran a "fax-bureau" for sending out advertising/daily-financial-news-bulletins. it took us only a couple of months to recoup our noriginal investment: after that the rental- and fax-paper-replenishment side of the business was a good background "pays for a new car every year" income-stream.

GPO/BT really missed out on monetising the fax-thing!

[Richard_FM]

I remember Dad saying that after 1970 most non-business telegrams were congratulatory ones for weddings or babies.

I imagine most businesses that needed information fast would have had a Telex machine by 1982. I think telegrams could be sent via Telex if the GPO had the recipient's number.

Years ago I found an interesting online article written by someone who had worked his way from being a delivery boy to an operator. There were lots of interesting antidotes of how the telegram service operated, some quite amusing.

[Richard_FM]

Originally Posted by G6Tanuki

I'd agree with this! The smart people within GPO would have seen the inevitable privatisation on the horizon and would have done all they could -[within their public-service-mandate constraints] to realign the business to cope with the future-reality (which didn't include telegrams).

In the early-80s there was a postal-strike. Me and a couple of friends imported several thousand fax-machines [non-BABT-approved] from Korea. We sold or rented them to businesses who *needed* to communicate, and ran a "fax-bureau" for sending out advertising/daily-financial-news-bulletins. it took us only a couple of months to recoup our noriginal investment: after that the rental- and fax-paper-replenishment side of the business was a good background "pays for a new car every year" income-stream.

GPO/BT really missed out on monetising the fax-thing!

I remember there was a brief period when a companies offered various services by fax and there was talk of it expanding beyond businesses to domestic users, but the internet soon closed this niche.