Telkom invites residents to take a walk down memory lane

The archives are open to the public, free of charge.

July 12, 2023

Manna Maurice 2 minutes read

Lerato Tshabalala and Dr Charles Stofberg.

Telkom invited residents to take a walk down memory lane by visiting their archives located on Rebecca Street in the Pretoria Townlands.

Having recently moved from Roseville, the archives store telecommunication memorabilia that are hundreds and even thousands of years old.

“Documents tell you a lot more about an artefact than a museum can,” said archivist Dr Charles Stofberg.

“These records are a complete recount of the history of telecommunications in South Africa. We’ve kept everything from Telkom’s history since the post office days of the 1800s clean and in pristine condition.”

Rows upon rows of folders can be found at the archives containing documents, postal contracts signed by Paul Kruger, telegraphs, teleprinters, camier systems, radio, film, and television that take visitors into the communications of old.

The archives are also home to one of the oldest recorded documents in Africa from the 1600s, only rivalled by the Timbuktu manuscripts and other Egyptian documentation.

“We go through and apprise everything worth keeping. Anything ephemeral, we discard. But we still keep a record of it. So when someone says, ‘Where’s my document from 2000?’ we can look it up and tell them if we have it or give the reason why it was not kept.”

Artefacts such as notes from British soldiers during the Anglo-Boer war, directories over a hundred years old, newspaper clippings during the early 1900s and over 8 000 photographs are only the tip of the iceberg that is the Telkom archives.

Blind telegrapher communicating in brail.

Detailed accounts of accommodation, salary structure, and staff throughout hundreds of years are available and on display.

Stofberg said that the telecommunicator wanted to make these documents available to the public and is in the midst of a digitization process of all the archives’ contents.

“Just because something is scanned doesn’t mean it’ll be destroyed. We will, of course, keep the originals as they are the only of its kind in the world. But we want to make sure we captured the achieves digitally, page by page, which will take many years.”

The archives have hosted learners from Sweden, the USA, Nigeria, England, Germany, and many other nations. An international researcher recently paid a visit for information regarding technicians in the HR environment.

“When I first started in 1994, I was amazed by what I saw. It’s not every day you walk into a treasure trove and find all these things we have here – documents from 100, 150 years ago. It’s a literal walk through history we invite the public to take,” he said.

For more info on the archives, contact Charles Stofberg at Stofbecf@telkom.co.za.

The archives are open to the public, free of charge and operate from 06:00-16:00, closed on weekends.