The Development of Telecoms - Gloucester
The ancient City of Gloucester is the headquarters of a telephone area of about 1,420 square miles, mainly in Gloucestershire and Wiltshire. Although predominantly agricultural, a variety of important light industries are carried on in Gloucester and some of the smaller towns. Many are connected with aircraft construction. Fighter planes prominent in the Battle of Britain, notably the Hurricane, were first manufactured in Gloucester. The world's first successful gas turbine jet-propelled aircraft, the Gloster Whittle E.28/39 completed its initial flight trial here in 1941. This was followed by the Gloster Meteor and more recently the GAS (now named the Javelin).
Besides Gloucester's magnificent Cathedral, the surrounding district will recall to many the Cotswolds and the Wiltshire Downs, each with their particular type of scenic beauty—Arlington Row at Bibury, Painswick Beacon, Symonds Yat and Savernake Forest.
The fashionable promenade, the squares and terraces of Regency houses of which Cheltenham Spa is so proud are well known, as are also, for a different reason, the extensive railway works at Swindon. Cirencester, sometimes called "Ciceter", Stroud, the home of West of England Cloth and Marlborough, whose interests centre round its famous school, are among the other towns of the area.
The Severn Bore, the Druids' Stones at Avebury, the Severn Wild Fowl Trust – these are but a few of the many notable features of an area rich in natural and historic interests.
Of the 108 exchanges serving some 32,000 subscribers (53,250 stations), 88 are automatic. The waiting list has been halved in the last three years (1950-53) and now stands at 1,550. The total staff for this area is 933.
