Sundays are easy!! Sunday’s are always about kicking back and listening to favourite tunes…but, we have been chatting about party lines, old phones, and phone boxes this week so some more about what I remember about early phone use:-
1) The phone was generally located in the hallway, often by the front door. This was usually the coldest part of anyone’s house. Everyone sat on the stairs to talk on the phone – having to lean into the wall if anyone wanted to shuffle past with a basket load of laundry.
2) You had to ask permission from a parent to even think about using the phone; they would glare at you after 15 minutes of chatter, and then shout at you to hang up at around the 40 minute mark.
3) Without fail my mum would say: Who’s that? whenever the phone rang without moving a muscle to answer it.
4) My sister would use the phone as a weapon of abuse. If we’d had a row [often] she’d dramatically dial up a friend and tell them, loudly, how vile I was and what she thought of me. So childish.
5) I hated waiting for boys to call me – devastated if they didn’t – too embarrassed to speak if they did because of my mum and sister hovering in the background.
An appropriate bit of Sunday Music for Mitzi…
Wonky Words 
Good lordy! Am I first again?
Oh well…it wont last! Where were we? Oh yes…telephones and how we managed without them. My home didn’t have a phone; mainly because there were no private lines left for our exchange and the party lines were becoming ridiculously cluttered. But in a small village it was easy enough to walk or cycle over to a friend’s place for girly gossip.
I remember the very old phone at my Granny’s house: a wooden thing, about the size of a boot box (big, man-size boots, you understand!), fixed to the wall. The speaker part was rather like an egg cup and the ear-piece was attached to the “shoe box” by a short cord. You’ve probably seen similar things on old movies. But Granny was lucky, when she moved across to the newer part of her village she had a “modern” phone, with a black Bakelite handset on oh joy! a yard -long cord! But automatic dialling was years into the future then. Telephonists at the local exchange connected all calls. And usually listened to the conversations!
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Dinah – I was around for automatic dialling – but my Gran did have the black Bakelite handset. In her hallway!
I remember having to call the operator for phone numbers and suchlike – and they used to sometimes put you through. I would have loved to have been a telephonist!
Sx
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hahahaha! I did work as a telephonist! Some years after the garbage I posted up there /
I was an operator some time before long distance DIY stuff. Mostly, landline, cable stuff and some radio work. But it was interesting.
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Dinah – Well that could make an interesting post. What sort of things did you overhear?
Sx
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Yes please for a telephonist post from Dinah!
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….and a Safeway till post from you, Mr Devine!
Sx
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Ooh, here are my early phone use answers:
P.S. Your comment box turned my reply into a list. Very spiffy!
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Mr Devine – Of course – after 6pm only! The itemised bills put us in our place – late 80s? I remember my dad stabbing his index finger at the bill at some international call my sister had made. How I sniggered.
Did homosexuals often dial your number?? I think I have more questions, but I have to get my dog out – which sounds like an euphemism, but really isn’t!!
Sx
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I remember much clock watching in our house between me and my sisters – it was often a race to the phone at 6pm!
As for homosexuals dialling our number, sadly no, not very often. I was the only Gay in the village (there are loads of old poofs here now) – and I didn’t know of any in town either. Well, not until a couple found me on the till in Safeway which eventually led to the fateful call.
PS. It REALLY DOES sound like a euphemism!
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No, no, no, no, no…. till in Safeway…? We want more of this tale, Mr Devine! How did they get your number??
Sx
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Well, they kept coming to my till (even if I had a big queue) which I was thrilled about because I’d found some people like me! (Although, they were a bit more flouncy and obvious than I was. A bit.) We met up in town a few times, but nothing of “that sort” happened because I was young and didn’t know what to do.
Oh, I did kiss one of them once, but his moustache put me off because it was very bristly!
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Oh, I’ve just remembered: the bristly kiss happened right by the other phone box in the village (the one next to the shop)!
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Oh my goodness! I know what you mean about moustaches – once, and never again.
I’d never want to be young again and have to go through all that awkwardness – I’d rather have the wrinkles!
Sx
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Those old phone boxes have seen some things. Let’s be grateful that CCTV didn’t exist back then!
Sx
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Oh, absolutely! I can’t imagine what it’s like to be young today – all the social pressures, surveillance and the like.
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I just realised how lucky I was living in Lalaland and also, being an only child! We never had a party line and the only wall hung phone was in the kitchen with a LONG cord! I had a phone in my bedroom when I was a teenager and no limit on conversation length. If I concentrate, I might even remember the phone number! II do remember it started with RE for republic. At that time all the numbers started with a word and you dialed (on a rotary phone) the first two letters followed by the rest of the numbers. Fast forward to our time in Savannah where I purchased a candlestick phone with push buttons disguised as a rotary dial for use as a landline in case of hurricanes when the power went out!
Great start to a Sunday, sweetpea, with a trip down memory lane! xoxo
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Savvy – Indeed, having a sibling is an experience! I’ve seen American films where the phones are on the kitchen wall and have long cords – how we envied you as we shivered in our hallways, anchored to the stairs by our short cords!
Our rotary phone also had letters on it, but they were redundant by the time I came to use it.
I do think it’s wise to have a landline that functions in an emergency – and I keep meaning to get one – I want a faux rotary one, too.
These memories have been fun! I might do cassettes next week, and the mixed tape… and taping off the radio every Sunday afternoon when the top 20 was on the radio!
Have a lovely day, Savvy!
Sx
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Thank you for the lovely video, American country singers do like their big hairdos don’t they?
We had it in the hallway too on a rickety telephone table with built in padded seat of lime green chenille. Sadly no flock wallpaper, we had that in the living room, in the hall we had what looked like hessian sack then a dado rail and then lincrusta panels painted white.
Having a sister 7 or 8 years older I quickly learned the ways of men, before my voice broke we sounded very much alike especially over the telephone. Her boyfriend Simon or was it Nigel it could have been Vince, whoever it was would often ring up and I would answer and pretend to be her, after the initial greetings the subject of ‘dot dot dot’ would arise, at 10 years of age I didn’t understand any of it I just giggled coquettishly and said yes to everything he suggested. She was very popular.
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Mitzi – Lincrusta panels – I had to look those up – very posh! I had a turquoise painted hallway with a floral Wilton carpet. It was okay to clash colours in the seventies. My dad liked turquoise. My mum liked flowers.
My sister’s first boyfriend had the girls falling over themselves to go out with him. He dumped my sister for her best friend, and then he swiftly came out as gay. Sadly no longer with us.
Sx
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Our phone was in the same room as the television so privacy was absolutely out of the question. My father would always yell for my mother to come answer the phone no matter how inconvenient for her even though he was only across a very small room from it. He was a lout.
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Mr Peenee – Oh no, that wouldn’t have worked – no one talked over the TV in our house!!
My dad usually answered the phone in the evening as it was usually a relative – he’d be chatting for over an hour and then my mum would enquire again as to who had called, and then ask what they had said. My dad would always shrug and say, ‘nothing much’. It was a bizarre sort of ritual.
Sx
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Was there some music?
Anyhow, telephones… Our (one-time party-line) phone was a new-fangled wall-mounted GPO grey one with a contrasting darker grey handset. The cord only reached around the corner of my parents’ downstairs bedroom (ours was a bungalow), so you could close the door to have conversations but it was awkward if anyone wanted to go to bed. Our paintwork in the hall was mainly pale blue and white, as I recall, but (typically 60s) there was a glass panel and glass door to the living-room so if my mother or father was on the phone you would have to turn the telly up.
I didn’t have homosexuals calling our phone very often (certainly not when – so I thought – I was “the only gay in the village” as a closeted teenager). Shame, really. Jx
PS I have never been into “moustache kissing” either.
PPS I had to look up Lincrusta, too. Dead posh. Although we did have some vile huge-flowered Vymura wallpaper at one stage that you could get a Chinese burn from if you rubbed your fingernail on it.
PPPS I wouldn’t bank on a landline in an emergency after December 2025, as they’re switching off all non-digital lines in the UK then.
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Jon, I think there was music for Mitzi?! But yes, this post was certainly more about phones than music!
We all could have grown up on the same housing estate really – only Mitzi had the poshest wall paper. You and I even had the same bedspread!
Sx
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