Page 1038 - Reading Mercury

THINKING DAY SERVICE
Guides and Brownies met on Sunday afternoon for the first Thinking Day Service to
be held since the Wokingham District was divided into two, and for the first such
service to be held at Corpus Christi Church, Sturges Road. The theme was “Unity”—
through Guiding, among nations and within the Church.
Guides with their Company flags and Brownies with their Pack pennants, marched
to the front between rows of fellow Guides and Brownies, parents and a contingent of
St. Paul’s, Wokingham Scouts, who were representing the Scout movement in the
district.
Girls and Guiders leading the congregation in prayer, and a group calling
themselves the “Leisure Mums” accompanied the choir on guitars for one hymn.
Afterwards, flag and pennant bearers formed a guard of honour outside the church.

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Thur 15 March
STD SYSTEM FOR WOKINGHAM
Progress in the form of STD, comes to Wokingham next week with the opening of
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the town’s new automatic telephone exchange. At 8 a.m. on March 23 , the automatic
exchange will take over from the existing manual and West Forest exchanges.
The Post Office are hoping that, subject to his commitments permitting, Mr. W.R.
Straubenzee, M.P. for Wokingham, will perform the opening ceremony at noon on
that day.
Some 7,000 subscribers are affected, the bulk of them on West Forest mobile
exchange. Not only has West Forest more connections than its parent, it is the largest
mobile exchange complex in the country. About half of the existing Wokingham
subscribers will have their telephone numbers changed by the addition of the prefix
78, and all others will have a complete number change to a number beginning with 78.
“It will be a six-figure number ranging from 780000 to 78 787499. A number of
people will be given service from Brookside, another mobile exchange which we are
starting there,” said Post Office public relations officer, Mr. M. Gray. “We know the
new Wokingham exchange will not be large enough initially to cater for the expected
demand and that is why new subscribers will be connected to Broadside.” Brookside
STD will remain in service until completion of an extension to the equipment at the
automatic exchange which the contractor already has in hand.
To explain the introduction of the STD system to the public, Post Office Telephones
are to stage an exhibition in the Old Fire Station, Wokingham Town Hall from March
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21 to March 27 .
Wokingham’s first telephone exchange was opened in 1891 by the National
Telephone Company. In 1900, 11 Denmark Street was acquired for an exchange on a
21-year lease. The Post Office took over the National Telephone Company in 1912.
Records show that in 1927 Wokingham had only 295 lines.

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Thur 22 March
CHINESE TREE FOR WOKINGHAM
A tree of the Sophora Japonica species (known as the Chinese Scholar tree) was
planted at the boundary of the pitch and putt course, Wokingham, on Thursday, to
formerly introduce to the borough the national “Plant a Tree ‘73” scheme.
It was chosen and planted by the Mayor and Mayoress of Wokingham, Cllr. and
Mrs. Ian Crail, who selected a Chinese tree to commemorate both the national scheme
and the Mayor’s coming visit to China where, for three weeks, he will be representing
his firm at the British Industrial Technology Exhibition being held there.

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