switchboard

The switchboard at the Lime Grove studios was jammed with viewers ringing in to find out more, and it gave the BBC the nudge to set up the Natural History Unit in Bristol in 1957.

“I went to Brown, so I still knew the switchboard number by heart,” she says.

With no industry experience, Johnson simply called the switchboards of the UK's biggest record companies.

Unfortunately, I put my left arm into an 11KV switchboard, which completely melted my forearms down to the bone.

She soon went to work for the General Post Office, which ran Britain’s telephone system, and was trained as a switchboard operator.