THE introduction of STD (Subscriber Trunk Dialling) numbers to Clitheroe in the autumn of 1966 changed the last of the town’s original telephone numbers dating back from the late 1800s!

Only one private subscriber wired to the Clitheroe telephone exchange still had such a number, along with the police station and the railway station.

The start of STD 42 years ago meant general re-numbering.

Until that day, simply calling Clitheroe 4 brought Miss Evelyn Garnett of Moorland Crescent to the phone, as it had since being a young girl.

The line had originally been taken by the local company Tom Garnett and Sons.

The police station in 1966 could be contacted on Clitheroe 18 and the railway station on Clitheroe 2!

The first telephone directory for Clitheroe, dated 1895 showed 20 subscribers; among them Horrocksford Lime Company, John Shuttleworth and Sons and John Briggs and Son, which were still in business in 1966, but using different numbers.

The first telephone calls to be made in Clitheroe were, in fact, around 1887, before the exchange was opened — and took place at a bazaar at the Wesleyan school.

Postmaster S N Whalley had obtained some ‘strange’ instruments, according to visitors, who were then able to speak to others in different schools around the town. Two Post Office engineers people might remember from the old exchange, were a Mr Jackson and a Mr Gudgeon.

While old supervisors include Elizabeth Richmond and Jessie Fairey, whose father was a linesman at the National Telephone Company’s Clitheroe exchange and her brother Francis who was a telephone engineer in Blackburn.