I got a "telegram" this morning

 although it was actually an email from a friend telling me that she had succeeded in doing something. It was written as if it was actually a telegram and it made me wonder how widely telegrams are still used. Out of curiosity I did a little research and discovered that they are still quite widely used, especially in less developed countries.

I thought back to telegrams I could remember. My first memory of them is when I would have been about seven I suppose. My parents received one. It was delivered to the house by a boy on a bicycle. I remember my mother standing there and reading it as he waited to find out if there would be a reply. Did they really send young boys, because he certainly was not very old, out to deliver bad news as well as good? I suppose they must have.

I don't know what that telegram was about although it must have been important because they were expensive to send. If you wanted to send one you crafted it very carefully - to get the maximum meaning into the minimum number of words. And no, it was not like sending a text message now.

We moved "back to the bush" a couple of years later and there was the "party line" telephone, "long distance" phone calls (three minutes), and telegrams. As the headmaster the Senior Cat used all three. 

In the city I had been taught to make a phone call as well as answer the phone and take a message. My parents considered this to be a matter of safety.  In the city you dialled the number and it went to the place or person to whom you wanted to speak. In the remote rural area the Senior Cat had been sent to though it was quite different. All the phone calls had to go through the "Post Office" which was actually a counter at the local general store. There the "Postmaster" would use a switchboard to route the call. There were "party" lines, shared by a number of people. Phone calls tended not to be private. You never knew who might be listening in. The Postmaster himself would tell people things like, "Jack's not there right now. He's gone over to Bill's place" and "Marg's at the CWA meeting. I'll send Rob down and give her a message to call you." All this was seen as his role in the community.

It became a little more awkward when dealing with the affairs of the school, the bank, and the police station. People had to accept that, like the teachers, the bank manager and the lone policemen they had no right to know what was going on. It must have made life hard for the Postmaster. 

And he sent the telegrams of course. I can remember taking telegrams to him for the Senior Cat. I can also remember standing there while the Postmaster and more than one local farmer tried to work out what to say. On one memorable occasion they looked at me and asked me what I thought. I can remember putting it into fewer words and the Postmaster sending it off without further ado. It was just accepted that "the head's kid" would know about something like that. I must have been all of ten at the time. The elderly farmer was probably one of those who could barely read and write, who had probably left school when he was no more than nine or ten, if that. His children probably left school at the earliest possible moment. I don't even remember saying anything at home. It was "just a telegram". 

Yes, you can still send them here but they are not common. I think if I walked into the local Post Office and asked to send one there would be questions as to why I didn't phone or email or text. I doubt anyone on the staff there would be absolutely certain how to go about it. If old Mr E...., the Postmaster, was still alive he would sigh and look around for a piece of equipment they would not own and may not ever have seen.

But there, in the morning's email, was the telegram, "Success, stop." Nothing more needed to be said.