Posted by John Wilson on August 11, 2000 at 12:35:51 from wgtn-cacheflow.itnet.co.nz:
In Reply to: Re: Picts and Martyrs - oddities index posted by Ed Kiser on August 10, 2000 at 20:14:24:
Re the Postal Service: the GA’s letter in PM turns up the day after the telegram, perhaps some literary licence to keep the plot moving? The postal service must have been as good in America once; in Presley’s hit song “Return to Sender” the letter to his girlfriend turns up “early next morning” having been to her address and has been returned marked “gone no address” (or did she send it back?).
Telegrams ....
Apart from cost, prewar (and fifties) telephone toll calls were all via an operator and could be on delay, ie you would be rung back when a circuit was avaliable. Hence even the (bone) idle rich like Wodehouse’s Bertie Wooster would send a telegram rather than phoning.
The British Post Office (BPO or GPO) used to run mail, telephone and telegraph facilities before it was privatised. PTT or Postal, Telephone and Telegraph organisations were common in Europe (like New Zealand; I worked for the New Zealand Post Office and then Telecom New Zealand
for 33 years).
re Education, how about ML where Roger who is seven or eight is top of the class in Latin (which I did briefly in secondary school in New Zealand). I suppose going to a prep/prepatory school (US = a preppy?) he could have started Latin young! Anyway literary licence again, so Roger is top for once and Nancy & Peggy are at the bottom!