Record Christmas Toll Calls From City

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30325, 28 December 1963, Page 13

Record Christmas Toll Calls From City

A record number of 6300 outward toll calls was handled by the Christchurch Post Office on Christmas Day, said the acting Chief Postmaster, Mr J. W. Lincoln, yesterday. The outward toll calls handled by the Christchurch staff, he said, were 1400 more than Christmas Day. 1962. 1 ‘The rush on toll calls started at 7 o’clock on Christmas moreiing and reached a peak about 2 p.m.,” he said. 1 “The rush did not ease till about 3 p.m. I believe there were more than 120 Christchurch calls booked for overseas.”

Mr Lincoln said that on Christmas Eve 3221 telegrams were telephoned to the Telegraph Office in Christchurch. This was about 200 more than last year. A team of girls, telephoning telegrams for delivery in Christchurch, handled 1600 on Christmas Eve, and 1900 on December 23. The Christchurch Post Office, he said, handled about 10.000,000 recorded letters for December up to Christmas Eve. This figure included 4.339.000 recorded outward letters.

"Probably Christchurch had about 6 million inward letters from other parts of New Zealand," he said. “There were exceptionally heavy late postings on Christ-

mas Eve and on Christmas Day. On Christmas Day we received 86,000 postcards and letters posted in Christchurch. ‘‘lt looks as if many people were late posting because of the wet week-end, and others sent mail to people they had forgotten earlier.”

Mr Lincoln said there were bound to be a few delays in getting box mail sorted, while the Post Office was working on a reduced staff. Because of a tremendous amount of box mail, it took until midday yesterday to get the box mail sorted. Normally box mail was sorted by 9 am. Much commercial mail was posted late on Christmas Eve, he said. This included bills, circulars and letters.

Christchurch postmen, he said, had now caught up with all mail posted in New Zealand up to Christmas Eve. A large quantity of mail from other parts of New Zealand was delivered in Christchurch yesterday. Australian, American and United Kingdom mails that arrived yesterday would be delivered on Monday.

Very heavy Savings Bank deposits came in from suburban and district offices yesterday morning, said Mr Lincoln.

Three thousand deposits had come in from people who had made deposits at suburban and district offices on Christmas Eve. “They don’t want to carry money around with them,” he said. “They put it into the bank.” On the other hand, said Mr Lincoln, there were 2500 withdrawals from district and suburban branches for Christmas spending.