Does anyone else remember the days and I'm only going back to the late 60s and early 70s when you had to put your name down for a house phone. I can remember my mother being on the waiting list around that time and having to wait about 12 months before she got one. I can't remember the exact cost but it was massive compared with most costs for other items, it was a save up job. As a child, in our road of about 20 houses only one house had one and every one would knock on the neighbours door to use it if it was absolutely a need and leave a tanner. I can remember when i bought my house in 1973 asking if they were leaving the phone, that was to save me having to pay to get reconnected. My earliest memory of a phone box was paying 4 old penny's and press button A if you got through or press button B if you didn't, to get your money back.

Quite a lot of people had shared lines with their neighbour, that continued in some places until the late 80s I think.

Bert

Ha "or press button B if you didn't, to get your money back"

Do you remember bunging up the money return chute with paper so that when someone pressed button B they received nowt - you got it later. Scally I woz when I was about 10.

Snod

Phone lines where only available to companys and people of reputation at one time, i think i am correct in saying that it was only in the sixtys that anyone could go on the "list" for a phone !.

Although before the 60's i can say that the line rental in the 1930's was five pounds a year before calls, which was a couple of weeks wages !.

I wasn't going to mention that bit Snod or about telling kids to dial xyz for the free listen to a record service.

certainly remember all of it bert ,i used to be a gpo telephonist in the sixties those 4d coin boxes used to drive us crazy people would dial 0 for operator put money in (even though it was free to op.)then we couldnt hear them till they presses button b we were told to say please press the button b caller we cant hear you -total silence-then ended up having to explain it was on the side of the box ,people just werent user savvy in those days also remember my mother dialling the speaking clock which was automated and keeping on saying thanks ive got that time now then saying to me she just keeps on saying the time she wont answer ,me trying to explain it was just a machine

In regards to old Pulse telephones i.e the ones which have bells inside and you turn the dial to dial a number actually doing the morse code (its not like morse code but its how i describe it) to call somebody still works today i.e. those taxi phones in tescos with just one button just tap the hangup button for example to call the talking clock press the hangup button 1 then 1 2 then 1 2 3 hey presto it works if your fast enough mind you.. But its good if you dont actually want to use the taxi phone to call the taxi firm advertised so little tip for people who wanna call a different taxi company


*thinks i shouldnt of told anybody that )

For those who have no idea of what they're talking about, this is a press button A/B coin box:



Some were still in use in the 1970s (this one actually takes 2p, 5p and 10p coins instead of 1d, 6d and 1/- coins)

Excellent Upton, that certainly looks impregnable, i remember the flimsy boxes they replaced them with. In no time at all the GPO had to go and put reinforced bars around the cash box. In the days of the A B box more often than not there was a telephone directory on the shelf inside the telephone box and am i going mad or was there a little ash tray in there as well.

No Bert you're not going mad! There was an ashtray in there.

The record call was called Dial a Disc and you dialled 161. They played the same song 24/7 for a week I don't remember it as being free.

I was a Directories Enquiries operator in the 70's. It was the days before computers and we were all kitted out with a full set of directories exactly the same as people had in their homes but we had every one so covered the whole of the country.
Blimey - I suddenly feel very old

No Softy,we use to tell kids xyz was a free record service but its actually 999 and they use to get a shock when they were asked what service they required.

Yes there was an ash tray Bert. Rectangular chrome jobby with slots in the bottom. Just to the right of the actual phone.

When they came round with the new directory to the house, they also replaced the one in the box at the end of our road. The difference being that the phone box one had a nice hardback cover. I used to leg it down the road and a swop was very quickly made ! Naughty !

Can just remember the changeover from manual to dial phones. Prenton area changed from "Birkenhead" to "Mountwood". Had a "party line" for a couple of years".

There was an ivory button in a chrome surround on the centre backboard of the old (manual) boxes. You just pressed the button to call the Fire Brigade !!! What fun the scumbag-scrotes of today would have with that !

Softy Southerner beat me to it re: ashtray!!

Number of red telephone boxes
The K6 was the most prolific kiosk in the UK and its growth, from 1935, can be seen from the BT archives:

1925 - 1,000 (K1 Only)
1930 - 8,000 (K2 & K3 added)
1935 - 19,000 (K6 introduced)
1940 - 35,000
1950 - 44,000
1960 - 65,000
1970 - 70,000 (K8 introduced in 1968)
1980 - 73,000

Wasnt there a number 189 or 198 special service on the phone ?? i remember titting around with the phone box and dialing crazy combinations to see if i found free numbers etc.. I know about the 0800 891 - 899 (what ever 3 numbers here which access over seas shit) try 0800 891 585 for a test and be shocked

We used to call the operator from a phone at the top of Thistleton Avenue in Claughton Funny, its gone now, so has the one by Iris Avenue. We didn't really say anything, just laughed at them. I think we were about 8 or 9. I remember one day we were doing it and a police car drove past. We crapped ourselves because the operator had just that minute screamed she was calling the police!! We never did it again after that

The A A telephone box, i can't remember the last time i seen one of these or where it might have been. the AA must have phased them out years ago. The AA roadside telephone is now to be phased out because of mobile phones. Out of 5.5 million calls a year only 6,000 are made from AA roadside phones. I've still got my AA key on my key ring i got many years ago, i wonder if new members are still issued with them.

did you ever have a reason to try to use the phone in one of those boxes. I did in 1969, i opened the door with my key attempted to use the phone and found you needed coins of the realm just like in a road side BT phone box. I only had a half crown and a ten bob note on me so ended up thuming a lift to a garage for help.

is it illegal? Cant risk getting into trouble! Lol

Came across a K4 box in Frodsham, apparently came into service around 1920 and are only four left in use in the country, its like a mini post office, buy stamps, post letter and make a phone call.

It no doubt even doubles as a public convenience on Saturday nights!

In Frodsham, surely not

No keys issued to AA members any more.

I saw an old AA box (or was it RAC) on the side of the road when i was in Scotland last year !. can't be exactly sure where, it was somewhere between Dumbarton and Tyndrum !!.

When i joined the AA i was issued with a key...never used it though !.

Ah - the old public phone boxes. I remember you didn't really have to pay anything to use them; all you needed to do was tap out the number you wanted on the phone rest and it connected.

That was an urban myth, you could dial out in that manner (as you can with any landline phone) but it didn't circumvent the need for paying.

You are wrong, my friend. I did it more time times than I care to remember.

Did you ever have a "blue box" or "green box"? Originally the telephone call boxes didn't have the filters in to stop the tone signalling (a long time before dtmf) which enabled a few con tricks.

The tap method you described worked occasionally when the previous user had left credit on the box, but it would have worked equally well using the dial in those circumstances.

The tap method (cradle switch) does exactly the same as the dial switch - there was no difference, the circuits for most models of telephones are all over the internet, you can check it out.

The tap method I described worked all the time - it had nothing to do with what previous callers had or had not done. As schoolboys we would regularly use the boxes in Claughton village at lunchtime and make any number of calls. I know nothing of the technicalities of blue or green boxes or dtmf but this was around 1960/1961.

When my friends first told me about it I, like you, didn't believe them. But I, like you, was wrong. We had endless (childish) fun doing it. I can't remember the last time I did it and I've no idea when advancements were made to prevent it.

I also done it as a child, can't say whether there was credit on the phone or not but i must have been pretty lucky if there was, as i done it a number of times. I also on many occasions got through to the wrong number, the reason why was explained to me in later life. If you were tapping 6 for example, the tap had to be completed within the time the 6 would have returned had you been dialing, if that makes sense.

The dials were adjusted for a set return speed. The small cam on the back of a dial operated a contact. Dial 2 - it "made" twice. Dial 7 - it "made" 7 times. Dial "0" and it "made" 10 times. A rough setting in the field was the dial returned from "0" to rest in the same time you could say 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10, as FAST as you could !

To tap out a number on the cradle, you had to be pretty slick !

The Strowger equipment on the racks in the exchange had a little leeway, but not much. I started my apprenticeship with ATE in Edge Lane. They made the stuff !!

Slick indeed Pinz, hence the wrong numbers.