World War Two telephonist : Mrs Polly Shakeshaft

Transcript

I was working during the preparations for the invasion of France. We had to use a special equipment, I don't know how it worked, though it was just an ordinary phone but it had a little red button, I think it was, on it. I remember my boss on several occasions had phone call from somewhere and I heard him say 'shall we scramble?' Which puzzled me, and I thought, he's not talking about eggs, perhaps it's one of these motorcycle things, but of course they didn't have them much in those days. But I did learn afterwards that there was something in the phone connected so that conversations between two lines couldn't be overhead. It was to prevent the enemy listening in.