A Gunnedah Times reader recently alerted us to a snippet in the Sydney Morning Herald’s Column 8 about the difficulty contacting people (or places!) before mobile phones, video chats and WhatsApp messages. “When I was a boy we were connected to the rest of the world via a manual exchange at Carroll,” wrote David Swain. “It only operated nine to five, five days a week. My father told of a time when a family member in Tamworth was trying to reach us early. She could hear the operators: ‘Hello, this is Tamworth. I’m trying to get Carroll.’ ‘This is Gunnedah, you won’t get Carroll at this time, Carol is milking at this time.’ Talk about lost in translation.
