Telephone float in a parade, 1933.

A photograph of the General Post Office (GPO) float in the Lord Mayor's Show in London, taken by Tomlin for the Daily Herald newspaper on 9 November, 1933. Two giant telephones - and accompanying GPO workers - form the centrepiece of the float. The Lord Mayor's Show has been an annual event for nearly 800 years. A procession of floats, carriages and bands winds through the City of London to the Royal Courts of Justice. The GPO assumed the running of the telegraph service in Britain in 1870. In 1912 they took responsibility for the telephone network - holding a telecommunications monopoly in Britain until 1982.