Click on the green play button to find out more about the exhibition

Organised by the museum's volunteers, and held in the BT Connected Earth Telecommunications Hall, more than 80 ex-GPO and BT Exchange telephonists from the Worthing area met for the first time in 40 years.

Fred Stanford, who heads up the volunteer team, said: "I had the idea for the reunion, as I knew it had been quite some time since the last one was held.

"With the number of artefacts we have in the collection at Amberley which relate to the public manual exchanges, it seemed the ideal location to hold it in."

Interative

The displays, which were founded in 2002 by BT, are part of the company's heritage project, and include vehicles, street furniture, telephone instruments, switchboards and telegraph, and many of the exhibits are interactive.

Former operators from as far afield as Cornwall, Devon and Coventry travelled to the museum to take part in the day, and a message all the way from Spain made its way to the hall.

Jean Lawrence wrote: "Would love to have joined you for the reunion, but have just had a major operation and unable to fly – please pass on my best wishes to everyone."

Happy times

Kate Russell, marketing manager at the museum, said: "Old friends and former work colleagues were overjoyed to see one another again, and seized the opportunity to reminisce about old times."

She added that a vintage bus service, taken from a museum exhibit, was in action, to take guests from one end of the site to the other, and a buffet lunch was enjoyed by all.

She added: "After lunch, the ex-telephone operators were put back in the 'hot seat', and photographs were taken of them sitting at an old switchboard in the BT hall.

"The pictures made a lovely souvenir of the day."

To add to the nostalgia, a film, showing work at the Worthing Manual Exchange, made in 1964, was shown.

For more information on Amberley Working Museum, go to www.amberleymuseum.co.uk

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