General Chat

I agree Mags! Jean, You give us a wonderful picture of homelife and people encountering these 'new fangled' appliances.

Jean - If you don't write a book or at least a series of articles for a magazine with this sort of thing in you need your head testing. I have just choked on a strawberry! That was hilarious - but it's all in the 'delivery' too! - You should have been a comedienne lol Magsxx

My parents had one in the late 50s, and to this day the number has stuck in my head 5383 .I can not remember my own number now !! xxx Jill

We used to have a huge plastic oney box shaped like a penny strategically placed next to the receiver! - hint hint! LOL Magsx

Itsy My parents had the same problem with neighbours always wanting to use the phone. Of course they didn't mind usually but one particular family came round at most inconvenient times for trivial calls. My brother bought a little wooden box to sit by the phone.- I can see it now in my mind, 'Phone from here whene'er you will But don't forget who pays the bill' Mum never asked them to pay though and sadly some didn't offer.

I can't remember our house not ever having a phone - I can even remember the number : 1085 in the days before automated exhange I think! lol I can certainly remember my mum telephoning the doctor when I was screaming with earache as a toddler - so well over 50 years ago. We lived quite a way from the village so I guess it was the only way my mum could keep up with the gossip - and boy - could she gossip! I expect it was a bit of a status symbol - she was into those as well! lol Jean - You have made me roar yet again!! - we did the self same thing when mum got her first automatic washing machine. I think mum washed every curtain in the house to keep us entertained! LOL Magsxx

Hi My parents had a phone before I was born but the 1st one I remember was a trim phone - cream colour. That would have been early 70's Penny

early 50s and it was a party line. Ann Glos

I don't ever remember not having a phone. My grandparents certainly had one on 1950 and when Mum, Dad, brother and I moved out in 1951 we had a phone in our new house. Mum was a GPO telephonist and Grandad was on call for London Bus Company. When I got married in 1968 we lived in rented rooms in an attic (!) and didn't have a phone for the 9 months we were there. I was glad to move out so we could have a phone of our own! Now we have 3 landlines in our house and 3 mobiles, and only 3 of us living here! Greedy aren't we? LOL Sue xx

We had our first phone in 1962 and felt very posh. My parents wouldnt have one until the 90s and my mother never used it, just waited for people to phone her - that ways it didnt cost as much !!

yes I do remember the first one we got, it was a race to answer it by all the family, and the look of fright when they did. so funny :)

A bit like Viv, my Dad was able to be called out in the night once we had a phone. As he was a telephone engineer it was usually in the worst possible weather, when faults had been reported elsewhere, because of water in the cables, or similar. This was GPO. I don't think BT workers would like that too much.

I remember answering a phone in an old farmhouse that we lived in in the late sixties. It was an old black one with a fabric covered cord from the phone to the receiver , old style dial and a little drawer under the dial to keep telephone numbers on. Louise

My parents got the phone in 1958... my father's boss paid to have it connected so he could call my Dad out in the middle of the night! Viv

I was at college so it would have been 1976 as I remember long phone calls about romantic entanglements. It was two tone green to match our hall wallpaper. nell

my parents had always had a phone so don't know

First phone we had was when I got married in 1970. Dave

My mother had a phone installed the day I moved out of home(at the age of 22), so she could 'keep in touch with me'. (Check up on me, more like!) CB >|<

i think it was when i was about 6 or 7(1976-77). Karen

We got ours in the early 80sI think as i was still in primary school. Anna :-)