On a fine afternoon of 5 December, 1958, Her Majesty, Queen of UK, took a revolutionary step towards making a trunk call without the involvement of an operator. She phoned 031 CAL 3636, the Lord Provost of
Edinburgh from the central telephone exchange in Bristol, more than 300 miles (482km) away. It also marked the birth of Subscriber Trunk Dialling (STD). Till that day, all long distance calls were made with the help of a human operator.
18,000 subscribers in Bristol were given the first opportunity to make trunk calls. All the calls were charged based on distance and time both. It was big day in the history of communications and the staff at Bristol Telephone Exchange was very excited. Brian Fox, a fresh faced engineer who had only finished his apprenticeship three months before, stood only feet from the Queen when she made that historic call.
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| The Queen dialling what came to be known as the first STD call |
18,000 subscribers in Bristol were given the first opportunity to make trunk calls. All the calls were charged based on distance and time both. It was big day in the history of communications and the staff at Bristol Telephone Exchange was very excited. Brian Fox, a fresh faced engineer who had only finished his apprenticeship three months before, stood only feet from the Queen when she made that historic call.
It was one of the most important days ever in telecommunications history and a huge amount of work went into making sure the day went without a hitch. The walkway from Telephone Avenue was tented and full of flowers and a powder room for the Queen was hastily provided in a converted control room.
We stood between rows of equipment as close as we could get and watched Her Majesty dial the number. When it was all over and the Queen was leaving the Duke of Edinburgh remarked, 'you can relax now chaps, it all works'!International subscriber dialling (ISD) was introduced on 8 March 1963, when London subscribers were able to dial Paris numbers directly.
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