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David Eddy's telephone line to the town of Selwyn
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TitleDavid Eddy's telephone line to the town of Selwyn
DescriptionDavid Eddy, who grew up in Dunsandel, was excited by electronics, just as today we have young internet experts.
While official telephone connections existed in Dunsandel, the challenge was to build a private line.
The first attempt, in 1949, was a line from David’s house to that of John Sheat, a distance of some 400m. Improvements were made over time up to 1952 when interest in that line died.
At the end of 1951, David teamed up with Dick and George Hollings who lived in the Town of Selwyn to build a more ambitious line between the two towns, which are about 3km apart.
While it was possible to “acquire” the 800m of wire required for the first venture, 6 km of wire for the new venture was not going to be possible.
Fortunately the towns were connected by a railway line with its wire fence and the two top wires of the fence could be used as a line with some “minor” modifications.
The wires needed to be continuous for the whole distance and this involved extra joins and laying new insulated cable under gateways.
The hard earth at Yankee Crossing side road had to be dug surreptitiously before cable could be laid.
Fortunately there was a culvert across the Main South Road at Selwyn Town, big, and usually dry enough, for David to crawl through dragging the wire across. Some of this extra wire needed was “rescued” from abandoned sites.
The boys also had to ensure that the fence wire was not “earthing to ground” and the wire had to be insulated from the iron posts made from old railway line.
The first call was made in January 1952 but it was very noisy and the noise was reduced to an acceptable level by rechecking all the line.
The line needed to be maintained and just as today, trees can fall on lines, in this case, fences.
Wet weather also caused some extra noise as water can reduce the insulation.
To this day David still does not know who stuck a pin through the cable which shorted the system on one occasion.
Dick and David were the main users of the line over the nearly 3 years that it operated, but their two mothers often also spoke using the line.
In August 1952, officialdom caught up with David in the form of a visit from a Post Office Faultman, who was responding to complaints from users of the Post Office telephone line. The Faultman was convinced that David’s line was not the cause of the problem and did not report David’s line which should have been licensed under the Post Office Act.
When David joined the Post Office a few years later, at a Christmas party, the engineers presented him with a fun letter claiming the penalties for operating and unlicensed line, £20 for building the line and £5 per day for operating it, some £8650 in total.
All this was good training for David as years later he became Supervising Engineer Country in the Post Office responsible for the conversion of the Dunsandel telephone exchange to automatic working.
Life in the Town of Selwyn was actually not that isolated as Mabel Stainger has five references in her diary about using their telephone as early as 1919.
Material for this article was extracted from David’s new book “Growing up in Dunsandel 1930s to 1950s” by David Charles Ancell Eddy, Christchurch, December 2022 which is available from David at djeddy@xtra.co.nz
Mike Noonan
Dunsandel Historic Society
Date27 April 2023SourceThe Ellesmere EchoLocationTown of Selwyn
DescriptionDavid Eddy, who grew up in Dunsandel, was excited by electronics, just as today we have young internet experts. While official telephone connections existed in Dunsandel, the challenge was to build a private line.
The first attempt, in 1949, was a line from David’s house to that of John Sheat, a distance of some 400m. Improvements were made over time up to 1952 when interest in that line died.
At the end of 1951, David teamed up with Dick and George Hollings who lived in the Town of Selwyn to build a more ambitious line between the two towns, which are about 3km apart.
While it was possible to “acquire” the 800m of wire required for the first venture, 6 km of wire for the new venture was not going to be possible.
Fortunately the towns were connected by a railway line with its wire fence and the two top wires of the fence could be used as a line with some “minor” modifications.
The wires needed to be continuous for the whole distance and this involved extra joins and laying new insulated cable under gateways.
The hard earth at Yankee Crossing side road had to be dug surreptitiously before cable could be laid.
Fortunately there was a culvert across the Main South Road at Selwyn Town, big, and usually dry enough, for David to crawl through dragging the wire across. Some of this extra wire needed was “rescued” from abandoned sites.
The boys also had to ensure that the fence wire was not “earthing to ground” and the wire had to be insulated from the iron posts made from old railway line.
The first call was made in January 1952 but it was very noisy and the noise was reduced to an acceptable level by rechecking all the line.
The line needed to be maintained and just as today, trees can fall on lines, in this case, fences.
Wet weather also caused some extra noise as water can reduce the insulation.
To this day David still does not know who stuck a pin through the cable which shorted the system on one occasion.
Dick and David were the main users of the line over the nearly 3 years that it operated, but their two mothers often also spoke using the line.
In August 1952, officialdom caught up with David in the form of a visit from a Post Office Faultman, who was responding to complaints from users of the Post Office telephone line. The Faultman was convinced that David’s line was not the cause of the problem and did not report David’s line which should have been licensed under the Post Office Act.
When David joined the Post Office a few years later, at a Christmas party, the engineers presented him with a fun letter claiming the penalties for operating and unlicensed line, £20 for building the line and £5 per day for operating it, some £8650 in total.
All this was good training for David as years later he became Supervising Engineer Country in the Post Office responsible for the conversion of the Dunsandel telephone exchange to automatic working.
Life in the Town of Selwyn was actually not that isolated as Mabel Stainger has five references in her diary about using their telephone as early as 1919.
Material for this article was extracted from David’s new book “Growing up in Dunsandel 1930s to 1950s” by David Charles Ancell Eddy, Christchurch, December 2022 which is available from David at djeddy@xtra.co.nz
Mike Noonan
Dunsandel Historic Society
Date27 April 2023SourceThe Ellesmere EchoLocationTown of SelwynConnections
CollectionHistory of Town of SelwynOrganisationDunsandel Historic Society
OrganisationDunsandel Historic SocietyAttribution
Researched ByDavid EddyWritten ByDavid Eddy
Written ByDavid EddyClick on the image to add
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David Eddy's telephone line to the town of Selwyn (27 April 2023). Selwyn Stories, accessed 29/05/2026, https://selwynstories.selwynlibraries.co.nz/nodes/view/5381