NO GALL RECEIVED BY M.E.D.

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25445, 17 March 1948, Page 6

NO GALL RECEIVED BY M.E.D.

Four employees of the M.E.D. gave evidence that no notification of a call to Ballantyne’s was received from the fire brigade either to the M.E.D. office or the converter station in Armagh street, by public or unlisted lines. Mrs Mary Natalie Craig said she was on the telephone exchange at the M.E.D. from 3.50 to 4. and from 4.7 to 5.5. She received no message from the fire brigade. A person who sounded excited rang at 4.15 to say there was a fire at Ballantyne’s and “to get the power cut off." Any message from the brigade Would nave been passed on to the chief electrical engineer or his deputy. One of the six telephone lines was “secret” and kept

exclusively for the use of meter readers. « The call from the man was put through to the lines department, witness said to Mr Cleary.

Mr Thomas: There was no suggestion that the man was a brigadesman?—No, just an ordinary man ringing up. To Mr Penlington: She did not remember the man asking her to ring the Addington sub-station to pull the switch. The No. 35-392 was one to the converter station and a call on it from the Fire Brigadd would not reach her. Miss Beatrice Mary Line, assistant telephonist and inquiry clerk at the M.E.D., who relieved Mrs Craig, said she received no messages about the fire from the brigade or anyone else. To Mr Barrer: She had never received a message from the brigade that it was going to a call while she had been employed at the M.E.D. in the last two years. > Reginald George Fisk a shift engineer, who was on duty at the converter station in Armagh street between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. on the day pf the fire, said No. 37-770 was a public ’phone. There was an unlisted telephone, for the use of engineers in a case of emergency or by the Fire Brigade. He was despite no calls were received from the brigade that day. In the firm alarm call book, the call and location were recorded. The electrical inspectors’ department was informed of the calls during the day shifts. Typewritten instructions stated that if the Fire Brigade required current cut off it would ring the converter station again and assistance was then to be sent out to the fire. The time of the call and the brigade’s destination only were recorded on the first call. An electrician at the converter station, Edward Bryant Stroud, who was on duty with Mr Fisk, also said no calls relating to Ballantyne’s fire were received.