Interview with Robert McBride

Robert McBride recalls family background, childhood, joining Post Office as a cadet, duties, life as a boarder in Wellington, salary, checking telephone accounts, sorting postal notes, discipline, hours of work, sick leave, annual leave, work at the public service garage in ca 1930, duties, staff, Post Office fleet, motor repairs, work as assistant dispatch clerk, impressions of Napier after the earthquake in 1931, mail service contracts, reasons for transferring to Chief Postmaster's Office Dunedin - Clerical Branch, Ted Kerr, work at Post Office Savings Bank Dunedin, telegram dispatch room, work involved, the 1935 greetings telegram deluge.

Describes transfer to Invercargill 1936-1958, type of work, missing mail, mail deliveries, salaries during Depression 1930s, inspectors, details of records work, enlisting in 1940 for service in World War II, work in Divisional Signals as radio operator in Italy and Egypt, involved in Battle of Sidi Rezegh, radio reception difficulties at Cassino, return to clerk in mail services in Invercargill in 1946, changes after the war, work as manager at Invercargill Post Office ca 1956, reporting system, work as Manager of Dunedin Post Office 1958, work as manager at Christchurch Post Office in 1959, background to appointment as Chief Postmaster at Timaru in 1960, state of discipline, staff relations, introduction of decimal currency in 1967, major changes in the Post Office, impressions of J B Darnell and Sir Dawson Donaldson (Directors General), retirement.

Venue - Timaru

Interviewer(s) - Alison Parr

Venue - Robert McBride's home at 116 Wai-iti Road, Timaru

Arrangement: Tape numbers - OHC-001249 - OHC-001251

Quantity: 3 C60 cassette(s). 1 printed abstract(s). 2.27 Hours and minutes Duration.

Finding Aids: Abstract Available - abstracting complete AB 159.

Search dates: 1910 - 1985