Little Things.....

[rockyracoon]

I come across an old phone socket behind a chest of drawers, earlier today. I wanted to get rid of it but before ripping it off the wall I thought I’d better check to see if it was still live. I got my daughter to fetch an old style phone from the cupboard. Well, the very intelligent 17 year old was absolutely delighted to play around with an ‘old fashioned’ phone. She kept calling all the mobiles in the house, pressing the buttons. She even found the tiny answerphone cassette under the little flap. Thoroughly enchanted she was.

Little things, and all that......

[DTCwordfan]

and probably a £100 plus bill from BT, rocky! (just kidding)

[Buenchico]

>>> an old style phone
>>> pressing the buttons

Buttons? On an 'old style phone'? As far as I'm concerned, an old style phone looks like this
https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/Kg8AAOSwA~VaLW2V/s-l300.jpg
or even this
https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41lZXRJsMWL._SY300_.jpg

[Jackdaw33]

Quite right, Chico. I'm too young to remember the one in your second link but the one in the first link is identical, even down to the colour, to our first phone acquired in 1970. In those days the telephone service was operated by the GPO. You had to apply to them for a phone and the waiting list was usually six months.

[pixie374]

Aaaw :-). I remember the first ones in Chris's link. I remember telling my children that we used to have phones plugged into a wall- and they laughed :-)

[Sam1960]

We used to have what they called a "party line" with the phone on chris's first link. It cut the cost of the line rental.
The annoying thing was picking up the phone and finding somebody else was already using the line.
How times have changed.

[Captain2]

There are people standing at Antique/Retro Fairs making very good money from buying old phones (aka Pic 1) and converting them to today's technology; very soughtafter.

[andy-hughes]

I remember not long after I started working for Post Office Telephones in 1974, someone saying that soon we would be able to buy a phone in Woolworths, take it home and plug it in ourselves.

Oh how we laughed at such foolishness!

[Jackdaw33]

Landlines are still plugged into the wall. How would they operate otherwise?

[rockyracoon]

She was fascinated with the fact that she couldn’t walk around the house with the phone. All the conveniences of cordless phones and she’s thrilled with a plug in one.

[tonyav]

LOL, the same phone that my parents had when they first had a phone.
We were on a party line, cheaper if I remember rightly.
https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/Kg8AAOSwA~VaLW2V/s-l300.jpg
Thanks for the link, Chris.

[rockyracoon]

JD, the base unit plugs into the wall, but the phone is cordless.

[pixie374]

Jackdaw, my parents are the only people we know who even have a landline.

[tonyav]

You know two now, pixie. We have one.

[BAKERS DOZEN]

I'm 68 and I remember when my mum and dad had their phone installed and the last four digits of the number were 0003. We often wondered who got 0001 and 0002.

[pixie374]

Hi :-). I'll be round in the morning to show the kids xx

[rockyracoon]

I’ve, obviously, got a landline too. I couldn’t rely on a mobile on it’s own.

[tonyav]

It is cordless though, pixie.

[andy-hughes]

Jackdaw - // Landlines are still plugged into the wall. How would they operate otherwise? //

They are - and they were then - but you couldn't buy a phone in a shop and plug it in yourself. All phones were 'hard-wired' into the socket by a PO Telephones engineer, and you had a choice of which ever coloured phones he had on his van at the time he called.

[pixie374]

Ah, that is slightly cheating then Tony:-)
Ours used to be under the stairs and you couldn't move it anywhere.

[Jahulaye]

“and you had a choice of which ever coloured phones he had on his van at the time“

I have visions of horrible creams and hideous browns and greens