I always loved arithmetic, and was fascinated by numbers. But as one of nine children, my parents couldn’t afford to pay for the sort of education that was required to become an accountant. Time passed, and I married a farmer in 1966 and realized how much of a role bookwork played in running a farm. My mother-in-law did the books for the business, but really had no idea. So, I taught her how to do it. But she wasn’t ready to relinquish the responsibility and oversight of the finances to the new family member.

Unbeknown to all of us, she was already dying of cancer. So, three years later I had to resume the role of bookkeeper. I ran a credit and debit cash book from statements, and took pride in a balanced outcome. By this time, we had a four -member partnership, plus two lots of kids.

For a start it was manageable to keep everything up-to-date, but it was becoming more and more difficult as the business grew. I asked the partnership to invest in a computer and was met with shock and astonishment, but I pointed out it was too much to do everything by hand and I would have to be paid wages to continue with the status quo. Reluctantly, they agreed, but, when walking past the computer, they would avert their eyes as though the computer was going to jump off the bench and attack them. I was 33 at the time, and it was 1992.

I enrolled in a computer course and competed with other students, among which, were some pretty hot looking chicks, who hogged the male teacher’s attention. I got the gist of how to turn it on and save, save, save. Mostly I learned by trial and error. I made up my own chart of accounts, and at the end of the financial year I was pretty pleased that everything balanced out and I could print it off to have a forever copy.

Over the years, because I had computer skills, I seemed to have landed every job as Secretary, in any organization I was interested in. It opened my world to lots of opportunities to help the CFA, VFF, and my Community of St James. It opened the doors to successful Grant Applications and improvements to amenities in the town.

At times I’m still shocked that some people are frightened of technology, even mobile phones. I have a love hate relationship with my mobile phone, because I can always be contacted. However, that is offset by the texts and emails that keep me in touch with my loved ones, who are scattered all over the place.
​
It can also be a burden to have these skills. With the red tape required to stay abreast of governance of volunteer groups, it leaves little time to spend on my own hobbies. They seem to be put on the back burner. I must learn to be selfish.


Kathy Beattie
July 2025

​Communication has certainly changed over my lifetime.
 
My first job was working in a Telegraph office with Telephone Switchboards, Fax machines and Morse Code machines, although I don’t think they were called machines. I never used one, in fact I think there were only two people who did use them at my work.
 
They—the Morse Code units—were amazing pieces of communication. In fact, they still are, since they’re still used quite often today for marine navigation and by other organisations. The normal speed of transmission is about five words a minute, which is probably about the same speed as my typing.
 
Morse Code uses Dots and Dashes to show the alphabet, letters, numbers, punctuation and special characters. Lights can also be used in much the same way to send messages.
 
Morse lights are essential for transmitting universal distress signals such as an SOS which can be used globally.

How much communication has changed in so many ways! One obvious way is the way we type these stories on our computers. Push a button whilst sending a message to someone, woops, wrong button, press another button, the mistake has gone, then we move on.
 
Another example of changes in communication is the telephone. No more of those bulky wall units hanging on the wall which had a thing like a clock with numbers and letters on it, and a funny looking black thing. We would pick up this funny looking black thing, turn the clock thing using different letters and numbers, known as a dial, then on one end of the black thing, we could talk into it and on the other end we could hear someone talking to us. A conversation between two people – amazing - we just couldn’t see each other.

​By the way, the Morse Code unit, was and is a “Machine”.
 
Because I Googled it. On my computer.
 
Tom Barnaby
13th July 2025

​Perhaps Dick Tracy’s two way wrist radio gave us a glimpse of the future but, even in the late 1950s, it seemed a far fetched fantasy.

Source/image acknowledgement: ​https://www.pcmag.com/encyclopedia/term/dick-tracy-watch ​

​​Dr Who’s phone box was blue but the real ones were red and scattered around towns and suburbs. My parents always had a home phone. In fact, my Dad said a phone was installed in his house on the day his father died in 1929. Our home phones were initially fixed to the wall in the passage. Later the phone remained fixed but had its own dedicated furniture; a seat for the person making or receiving calls; a small tabletop for the phone, notepad and flip up index for frequent numbers; a shelf underneath stored the white residential and the yellow business directories.

​The difficulty of reading numbers in the telephone book and squinting at the street directory, finally lead me to the optometrist and my first pair of glasses. Middle age had arrived. Now the street directory is in my phone and talks to me as I drive to a destination. The bulky white and yellow telephone books have been replaced by contact numbers stored in my personal hand held phone. No longer confident to answer, “Hello. This is Anne speaking”, I check if it’s a known caller before answering or wait to see if the unknown caller leaves a message. I can’t remember when separate message machines increased our connectedness to each other but now spoken and written messages (SMS) arrive daily in my ‘smart’ mobile phone.

My phone also contains mail that would previously arrive as a letter or postcard. The pesky door to door salesman who accused me of being a bad mother for not buying his encyclopaedias has been replaced by scam phone calls. I don’t remember telegrams being corrupted but SMS messages often contain dubious offers of friendship and assistance.
 
First lessons in geography came from my mother who had been a telephonist with the PMG (Post Master General) before marriage. Upotipotpon was a favourite, even though I was a bit vague about its location. Tangambalanga and Koo Wee Rup rolled off our tongues and Poowong created a giggle, accompanied by the holding of noses. Poowong was somewhere near Bunyip where we visited relatives on our way to Briagalong. Apart from warning about the danger of a neighbour ‘listening in’ when phoning someone with a party (shared) line, Mum never gossiped about her time ‘on the line’.
 
Some social interactions have changed. Nobody under 40 years of age talks on the phone. Even everyday arrangements or queries must be in writing. It can be time consuming to exchange messages when a quick phone call would be sufficient. I witnessed another downside of personal devices recently. A group of guys at lunchtime were seated in a circle of chairs. Eyes fixed on their phones, they were enjoying a break from work in companionable silence.

​However, most of the time I enjoy the freedom and convenience of having my own personal communication device. I just have to work out how to download an accumulation of photos. Not only is my device a phone, street directory, answering machine and encyclopaedia, it’s also a camera. Not even Dick Tracey’s creator imagined such a device.
 
Anne Stewart
 
July 2025

​​Yes, there was a phone in Dad’s study, but I don’t remember ever making a personal call on it.
 
I was in Form 6 when Don went off to National Service in the Navy. I had wangled permission to go with him to see a film before he left but hadn’t really anticipated the opportunity of letter writing. Letters of six or eight pages regularly arrived and were duly answered.
 
The next year I was off to university, so Don’s letters continued, as did letters from my mother. Every Sunday night she wrote to any family member who was away and also to her sister, using carbon paper. The pages would then be sorted so that everyone had a top copy as well as an assortment of later copies.
 
In Indonesia, whenever we had nothing else to do, we’d write letters to a large assortment of family and friends. We had a modest post office in the Mess building next door. Mail seemed to arrive in bundles – none for a while and then a number together. Three weeks was about average time.
 
Sometimes a parcel arrived, mostly containing food such as packet soup. The prize-winning parcel was when my mother wrapped up a baby bath and posted it!
 
Don’s mother was very sick, and we desperately wanted her to know of the arrival of our baby before she died. Don wrote a letter that day and took it into the post office, explaining the urgency. The post-office man put it in his pocket to post in town. That letter never arrived but the next day, we each wrote a letter and they did arrive a few days before Mum’s life ended. The news of her death was received some weeks later from a relative who assumed we already knew. At least it wasn’t unexpected.
 
In contrast, six months later, my twenty-five-year-old sister and her husband died in a car accident. Again, the first letter we received thought we knew about it. Of course, the funeral was well over before we heard the news.
 
There was no fresh milk available in Aceh and a small tin of Danish powdered milk cost a fair proportion of Don’s salary, so the family sent several 3lb. tins over to us when Bronwyn was a baby. They took three months or more to arrive. When we visited Aceh thirty years later, our best friend told us that after we left, some milk arrived, and she used it for her own baby. She hoped we didn’t mind!
 
Back to country living in Australia. No home telephone. Walk around two blocks to the phone box if you wanted to contact your children in Melbourne.
 
Telegrams for important news. One said we had a new nephew named Solomon. We later found out the telegraph lady misheard – he was actually Simon.
 
My mother died unexpectedly. Three successive calls to our neighbour, who graciously called us in for each one.
 
We moved house. We had a phone! Twenty-eight years after we were first married!
 
Another ten years and we bought a computer and learned about emails.
 
Now I even own a rarely-used mobile phone.
 
But where will the great-grandchildren find the old letters to tell them about the past?

 
Carmyl Winkler
​October 2024