Bay Harbour: July 07, 2021

Bay Harbour News Wednesday July 7 2021
10
NEWS
Latest Canterbury news at starnews.co.nz
Keeping the old post office lines
• By Bea Gooding
“SOME PEOPLE preserve family
heirlooms, some people preserve
cakes, but why? If we stop doing
these things then I think we’ve
lost the plot.”
Those are the words of George
Wealleans, who has mastered the
art of preservation as founder
and inaugural president of the
Ferrymead Post and Telegraph
Historical Society.
It is why the 75-year-old is in
charge of the group responsible
for conserving the country’s
communications’ history in
a 1920s post office building,
nestled within Ferrymead
Heritage Park.
“If I don’t, then who’s going
to?” said Wealleans.
“It’s partly ego, partly a desire
to preserve our history. You
might as well preserve something
you’re keen on.”
The society collects and
restores vintage telegraphy,
telephone and switching systems
mainly from the New Zealand
Post Office and formerly Telecom
New Zealand.
The items, sourced from all
over the country, are in working
order, allowing visitors to get a
feel for what life was like before
the digital age.
The exhibition may look like a
CALLING: George Wealleans with one of the old telephones in the Ferrymead Post and
Telegraph Historical Society building.
PHOTO: GEOFF SLOAN
museum, but it has not
strayed too far from its original
purpose – the building still
provides postal agency services
and philatelic (postage stamp)
sales.
Wealleans and a few others
established the society in 1977
during a time when the country’s
morse system and telegraph
service were closing down in
1963 and 1988, respectively.
One of the members already
worked at the Ferrymead
tramways, so the heritage park
was seen as the perfect location
to keep the practice alive.
Otherwise, it would have
“ended up on shelves in a shed.”
“When some of the equipment
out there was ready to be
taken out, we wanted to see it
preserved. So I called a meeting
with post officers in town and
established a group,” he said.
“[Now] we have been tasked, or
dumped, with the idea of looking
after this stuff on behalf of the
people of New Zealand.
“But there’s no benefit of
looking after this stuff other than
our hobby.”
Born in Oamaru, Wealleans
was raised in Timaru by his
uncle and aunt when his father
left the picture.
In the 23 years that followed,
he completed school certificate
and locked in his first job at the
Timaru Post Office at 16-yearsold
as a trainee telephone
mechanician.
In search of love, he
relocated to Christchurch in
1971 to get hitched, eventually
building a house, raising three
children of his own, and starting
a new role at the telephone
exchange.
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