999 - Which Service Do You Require?
Seriously...
BBC
4.1 • 885 Ratings
🗓️ 30 June 2017
⏱️ 59 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
999 was the first emergency telephone number in the world when it was launched on June 30th, 1937. Within the first week, more than a thousand calls were made to the service with one burglar arrested less than five minutes after a member of the public had dialled 999. Impressive stuff. But there were teething problems...
In the early days, only those wealthy enough to own a telephone could hope to avail of the service. Exchange room operators complained of stress caused by the raucous buzzers which alerted them to 999 calls. Advancing technology connected with the system began to alter the relationship between public and police. Almost unbelievably in hindsight, the 999 service wasn't made fully available across the nation until 1976.
Exactly 80 years after it was introduced, Ian Sansom dials up the remarkable story of our three digit emergency number. Between rare archive, real life-or-death emergencies and interviews with call handlers on the front line, Ian takes a personal look at the evolution of 999 and asks what the future holds for this pioneering British institution.
Producer: Conor Garrett.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This was an impregnable fortress. The only way you get out was in a wooden box. |
| 0:05.0 | The controversial maximum security prison impossible to escape from. |
| 0:09.0 | And one of the duties of a political prisoner is the escape. |
| 0:12.0 | The IRA inmates who found a way. of a political prisoner is the escape. |
| 0:12.5 | The IRA inmates who found a way. |
| 0:14.5 | I'm Carlo Gableer and I'll be navigating a path |
| 0:19.5 | through the disturbing inside story of the biggest jailbreak in British and Irish history. |
| 0:25.0 | The narrative that they want is that this is a big achievement by them. |
| 0:28.5 | Escape from the Maze, listen first on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:34.0 | This is the BBC. |
| 0:47.0 | It's a number you never want to have to call. 9.99. |
| 0:50.0 | But from a really young age, you know that if you do have to make that call, the voice on the other end of the line will ask, |
| 0:57.0 | No, please, what is your emergency? |
| 1:00.0 | It's 80 years since those three digits became the world's first emergency phone line |
| 1:06.7 | and changed our relationship with the emergency services forever. |
| 1:11.2 | The police today arrested a suspected burglar in Hampstead, North London |
| 1:16.8 | after responding to a 999 call made by a member of the public. I'm Riana Dillon and today's story includes the |
| 1:25.6 | recordings of people at their most vulnerable, the moment that they need help. |
| 1:31.2 | It's a touching and inspiring story brought to us by Ian Sansom. |
| 1:37.0 | This is an emergency. |
| 1:45.0 | Emergency. |
| 1:47.0 | Emergency. |
... |
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