General Chat

Dear All

Hello


On 05 September 1959, the UK's first trunk dialling system from a public call-box
was used in a fanfare of publicity by the Lord Mayor of London and his deputy.


The new coin phone boxes had slots for 3d, 6d and 1s pieces.


The intruction of coin boxes was part of Post Master General Ernest Marples
scheme to modernise the phone system and popularise use of the telephone.

However, automatic dialling lead to a widespread job losses.


Now, you rarely see a phone box.

Take gentle care
Best wishes
Elizabeth,
xx

and no one got calls from India on a daily basis in those days :-D

Elizabeth
Thank you for this post.

We thought it was wonderful progress when one could call direct like that.

Only this week OH and I were saying we couldn't even think where there was a public call box now in nearby Folkestone.

Gwyn

Dear Ladies

Hello


Ann, HEE HEE. So very true.

Gwyn, glad to be of service.

I remember queing to use the telephone and if you didn'tput your money in quickly when the pips went, you were cut off!!


Where I live, there is a huge former telephone exchange building.
I am sure the property developers will want to build luxury flats.

Take gentle care
Best wishes
Elizabeth, EOS
xx

My mum used to work in the telephone exchange in Southampton.
You know, in the days when calls had to be connected.


My dad kept phoning until she answered - and chatted her up - on a regular basis!!! :-D :-D

Dear Maggie

Hello

You dad was a cheeky fella! Very romantic but I bet it cost him a small fortune!

I like the picture of you by your grand-son.
Have you got green legs?! Tadpole or alien?

We now have contact with Martian Maggie!


Take gentle care
With best wishes
Elizabeth,
xx

That was when STD had a whole new meaning,,,,,,, :-D :-D ;-)

It was 'Push Button A' or 'Push Button B'. I remember they were silver-coloured but I can't remember what they were for :-D :-D

I attempted to use one in the early sixties (was a kid) and gave up because I was terrified of it :-(

Tee hee. Nowadays I spend half my day on a computer and love all the technology.

If you pushed button 'A' and 'B' in a certain order, you got a free phone call :-D

One was to connect, the other to get your money back, if there was no answer.

Elizabeth, I was wearing green trousers. We haven't worked out what the 'pouch' is, or why I have a beard - I had no 'Desperate Dan' hairs on that day (that I know of) :-D

Yeah Subscriber Trunk Dialing
instead of..............std's

How about the First ATMs.
I used to wonder what was on the wall of the Royal Bank of Scotland, on my way to school that was about 1938, but was scared to touch it. It was the World's first Mechanical ATM.

Sorry Elizabeth, not trying to hijack your thread. just came to mind

ATM's 1938???

Barclays were the first to install one in 1968 In Enfield

jax, Yep probably Electronic ,read again, Mechanical ATM.or Hole in the wall dispensing machines, (doubt if they could have been called Automatic). like those chocolate bar machines in railway stations, only more Sophisticated, My eyes do not lie, nor do my connection with the Bank after I left school 1948.
PS they were better made than the present Electronic ones. The Royal Bank was probably ahead of Barclays Electronic ones anyway(1967). hehe.

Always pressed button B just in case before making a call, a bit like a free slot machine it made that tick tick tick sound and with luck 4 Pennies emerged :-D

Fred was a long distance lorry driver in the fifties and early sixties and he remembered ringing his boss from Nottingham and having to tell the operator the call went through Guildford.

I have met Maggie and she actually does have green legs and a beard.

If someone had said to me in 1959 that sometime in the future you will be able to carry a telephone in your pocket and you will be able to dial anyone in the world, I would have told them to get their head examined. :-0 :-0 :-0 :-0 :-0 :-0 :-0 ;-) ;-) ;-)

GP

I was still having to go through the operators from 1967 -1970 when I did my weekly phone call to my parents at a friends house. My parents applied for a phone in 1967, when I left home, and it arrived in 1970 just as I went abroad and unable because of cost to phone UK. We had to communicate via what is now referred to as snail mail. :-)

London had self dialing within Greater London years before. I am fairly sure the call box charge for a local call was 4 old pence in 1960. From the late 60s those with a technical bent, inspired by captain crunch, put together little gizmos which sent the right tones down the lines for free calls and pranks. My uni. took a dim view. Nowadays things have moved on and it is OK for big biz and big govt to hack yr phone but when needed most either it is flat or no signal.

was also possible to get free calls by tapping out the numbers on the cradle on some phones...

Shared lines......A great thing if you were nosy about your neighbours ;-)

Chris