SCANLON, Marie Therese

Marie Therese Scanlon was born on the 9th July 1925 at Norwood Private Hospital in Webster Street Ballarat to John Scanlon and Gertrude Byrne. Marie had an older sister Monica and a younger brother, Jacki. The family lived in Ripon Street and Marie attended the nearby St Aloysius' School were she was taught by the nuns to the 8th grade standard.
After achieving her Merit Certificate Marie attended Loreto College which was in Dawson Street North. She had undertaken commercial subjects at school and in late 1940 she sat for a scholarship to Scotts Business College which she won and so departed Loreto. Scotts was situated on the corner of Dana and Alobert Street.
Marie decided to sit for the PMG exam and went to Melbourne at the end of 1941. She went to a large telephone exchange which did country trunk as well as interstate calls and empoyed hundreds of girls. She returned to Ballarat PO in mid-1945 where many of her former school friends were also employed.
Marie had sat for her PMG entrance exam at Melbourne University, after successfully sitting the entrance exam she then commenced a six week training course. Marie went to Melbourne and resided at St Anne's hostel in Carlton.
She returned to a Ballarat vacancy in the days when a girl had to leave if she was getting married.

The Ballarat exchange was situated above the Post Office on the corner of Sturt and Lydiard Streets and was arranged so that one end looked after the local calls and the other end the trunk calls. The customers were know as subscribers and in the 1950s there were 4200 locally. Marie recalls that in the late 1940s very few people had private phones and most people were not phone minded and didn't expect to have one. In 1960 all towns within 30 miles radius of Ballarat became local calls.

At Ballarat about 34 girls worked a shift during the day but only two at night; about 90 girls in total being employed. Staggered shifts were worked and evenings were busy as calls were cheaper. during the day five technicians were on duty to repair faults on switchboards. Supervisors stood ebhind the girls on the boards and answered any queries that were fielded in their direction, the Supervisor standing for most of their shift. Marie became a Supervisor at the exchange and stayed there until the early 1970s when she became the Service Advisor working out of premises in Doveton Street and later Arrandale House (Bath Lane). At that time the Ballarat area was bounded by Melton, Daylesford, Skipton and Beaufort. She went to businesses with more than one exchange line to teach the staff and continued in that role until she retired in 1986. She was also a regular training the girls at Loreto Commercial College on phone etiquette.
With the progress of the time Marie also worked relieving duties at the Linton exchange until it closed in 1972, and then at Skipton until it closed, a decade later. Marie remembers with amusement the arrangements for trunk calls being made by people in the phone boxes which were then situated at the western end of the Post Office, Sturt Street frontage, and were immediately below the exchange. After hours people wishing to make a trunk call would call the exchange (immediately above) and the switchboard operators would by means of a handle, lower a bucket into which the callers would place the required amount, only to see it hoisted up through the floor above them.
Unlike the competition of today, when Marie worked in the telephone system, the PMG, being the forerunner of Telstra had a monopoly on switchboards, and so all employees were responsible for the whole telecommunications network.

Marie reflects that her job with PMG was great and many reunions were held during her time of employ and retirement with lots of nibbling, nattering and reminiscing.

Marie died on the 11th May 2014 at the age of 88. She is buried at the Ballarat New Cemetery in Lawn K Section 11 Grave 63 and is remembered very fondly by all of her surviving nieces and nephews.