Telephone Operators

4th February 1953: The Shell organisation's newly installed telephone switchboard controls the largest private telephone network in the United Kingdom. Sited at Shell's headquarters in Bishopsgate, London, a staff of fifty tend the network night and day, serving 5,000 people through 80 exchange lines and 1300 extensions. Shell's telephone supervisor of twenty six years Miss Rita May Rees chats to one of the operators Mrs Violet Thurston. (Photo by Reg Speller/Fox Photos/Getty Images)