learning a new TRADE

Press, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 26538, 28 September 1951, Page 6

learning a new TRADE

dutchmen trained AS LINESMEN

The 22 Dutch Immigrants who are being trained by the Post and Telegraph Department at Lyttelton as linesmen will soon be working on the department’s telephone development scheme. The additional automatic equipment to be installed in Christchurch will require q lot of prelimin* ary work, such as changing telephone dials, and the immigrants will make a start on this in a few weeks, releasing an equivalent number ol technicians for other work. The regional engineer of the department (Mr Tyrrell) said yesterday that the immigrants, who arrived last week, were proving keen learners Thev were at present accommodated in the immigration barracks at Lytteb ton and were receiving class instruct tion at H.M.N.Z.S. Tasman. Few it any of them had had any previous ex* penence as linesmen, and their training at present was mainlv to enable them to change telephone dials, this being the most urgent work within their capabilities. Before they were sent out by them* selves they would watch qualified men at work. When they started calling on private houses they would be issued with printed cards in case their Eng* lish was not clearly understood by householders. These cards would ex* plain that they were authorised employees of the department and that they had been sent to carry out work on telephones, said Mr Tyrrell. A furthe*. batch of immigrants from Holland, due to arrive in Christchurch to-morrow, will include more linesmen trainees. Like the 22 who have al» ready arrived, these men will be under contract to the Government for* two years. Mr Tyrrell said the department in Christchurch had originally been prom’sed 70 trainees from this source, but th« total from these two batches would be only about 36. If the differ’ ence was not made up in later draft! the telephone development work might slip behind schedule. The total staff engaged in Christchurch on this class of work at present was about 75.