Tales of Technology: Storytellers Reflect on Grandparents Storytelling Day Event - Held 11am, Saturday, 27th September 2014

One year ago, a muse by the name of Judy emerged from the rubble of walkie talkies, rotary phones, stone tablets, typewriters and other forgotten communication technologies to declare that the 27th September 2014 would be Grandparents Storytelling Day...at least as far as Mentone Public Library was concerned! 

It would be a day to compare the old with the new and find out where the age of technology was truly taking us in so far as how we communicate with each other.

Unbeknownst to us, it would also coincide with the other holiest day of the year on the Melbourne Australia calendar; Grand Final Day! 

Yet, despite a humble gathering of congregants to our library, an enthralling day of tales and discussion was held. Here is the day in pictures and thoughts from a few of our tellers...

Judy Sullivan

Having arrived at this ripe old age... 'as old as my tongue and a little bit older than my teeth',(as my mother used to say and is that a good idea for another session...'language.. Its use and abuse?')!.... I have seen in the past 50 years or less, 'change' occurring at a deafening rate.

 

Living in a small country town that was still being connected to the 'new' locally generated electrical supply, I can remember kerosene lights, koolgardie safes, ice chests, bread and milk door to door deliveries by horse and cart, one morning newspaper delivered at night, car battery driven radio prone to being 'flat', weekly films, singing around a piano, and dancing the night away (I was a bit older then).

 

Yet I am trying to enter the 21st century and at an ever increasing rate. I look longingly at my mobile phone, my Ipad and even this computer and wonder at the potential of each that I will never contemplate or achieve...or for that matter do the Googles and Apples of this world know where this is all going anyway?

 

The adage 'stop and smell the roses' probably sounds so full of promise to anyone over 40 but can anyone under 40 actually 'stop' to smell anything?

 

Oh well  go with the flow!

 

(Pictured: Judy [second from left] with 88.3 Southern FM team)

Tony Brooker:

It is approximately 50 years since I joined the PMG ( Postmaster Generals Dept) and have seen many changes in the field of Communications in that time. Telephones have progressed from enormous hand wound Magneto phones to small units that can be worn on the wrist, (Dick Tracy knew more than we gave him

credit for).

As time goes on we will see still further developments in Communications but I can't help but feel that we are losing the personal touch.We are asked to 'dial 1' for this
and '2' for that etc, instead of having a human voice to speak to.

Telephone Exchanges are now fully automated, whereas when I started out we had approximately twenty staff to keep things running and to speak to subscribers regarding their service.

When a fault occurred on a phone line, it would be attended to usually the same day or at the very most the following day,now it can take a week or more and we are told
how things are so much better than they used to be.

Oh for the good old days.

I lose count of the number of people I have nearly mowed down in my car as they step out into the road with their faces stuck in their cell phones but I guess you cant stop progress.
I just wish it would progress a little slower....

...Then again, I am getting old!

Thank-you to all our tellers for their tales of technology and pending trivialities.

To learn more about Storytelling Australia (Victoria), visit their website at:

http://www.storytellingvic.org.au/