My window on the world

I'd never really much wanted to be a switchboard operator. If we're talking about burning ambitions -- an opera singer, that was more me.

But there wasn't a lot going in that line in the late 1960s, especially if you were registered blind.

It's ironic, really, that I should end up working at Lloyds. I remember when I was a child their premises on Knowsley Street used to be an optician's, and the word OPTICIAN was written in letters a yard high.

The only word I could see -- of all the names and signs over all the shops in Knowsley Street -- was this one word "OPTICIAN".

It was 1947, I was first put on the Register. I've never really thought of myself as blind, but whether you liked it or not they registered you.

And after being registered, I was sent to the Bridge North Rehabilitation Centre for the Blind, and there I was trained as a telephonist.

My first day's experience on the Lloyd's switchboard was terrifying -- all those telephone-lines buzzing -- hundreds of irate customers ringing in, complaining about their broken television sets -- everyone cross and shouting at me.

I felt I was the customers' punchbag and, at the end of that first day, I was convinced I was out of my depth -- this job was beyond me.

That service department was the nearest place on God's earth to bedlam.

It was all hell let loose. You had voices of customers bellowing out of the switchboard and then, on top of that, 20 television engineers constantly calling in on their radio-car-telephones -- their messages blaring through, full blast and crackly, on a nearby loudspeaker.

My job was to bridge the gap between these two commotions, and ensure the engineers drove with all speed to repair the broken TVs.

Every morning, for that first couple of hours, madness reigned.

A few minutes before nine, I would sit down at my switchboard, hook my foot around the leg of my chair to stabilise myself and stop me wobbling when things hotted up.

Then I would take a very deep breath. I would gingerly pick up the first set of plugs and thrust one into the first exchange line.

Flick over the speakers switch, and then say my party-piece: "Good morning, Lloyds. What name is it please?

"One moment, I'm putting you through to service. Go ahead, you're through."

Oh, I wish I had a pound for every time I have spoken that line.

For the next couple of hours, you hadn't time to draw breath. Every line on the switchboard would be ringing like mad, and on every line was a poor old Lloyds' customer trying desperately -- as if their lives depended on it -- to get through to service.

The TV was so central to their lives, some of them would be near to tears.

Others -- if they'd missed an episode of their favourite soap -- I would have to fill them in on the latest storylines.

Who had done what to who. What Ena Sharples had said to Elsie Tanner. I'm sure my original job-description hadn't included storytelling and therapeutic counselling.

I began really to feel for the customers, even though they were usually fed up and a bit cross when they eventually got through to me.

I had a vision of a world of anguish -- a wasteland of people with broken television sets -- and I was their champion riding to their rescue.

The Florence Nightingale of the Service Department. I began genuinely to care for them. Of course, all of this was a bit of a comedown from my destiny as a diva, an opera singer.

But maybe next time, maybe in another life.

And despite all my early misgivings about the job, we eventually became quite close -- me and my switchboard.

It's funny to think, but I felt it became a part of me. My window on the world, if you like. A little like television is, for those who can see.