Real Telephones.

Gramaisc

Forum O. G.
As mentioned elsewhere, proper people still have real telephones.

This is my current one in service. It is in the hall, of course, where all decent people keep their house phone.

6KA3Fz2.jpg


The handset cord has gone a little bit 'tacky' with age, but it all still functions correctly.


And this is currently a 'project' - I really wanted the one with the onboard memory - i.e., the little drawer for the list of useful numbers at the bottom.

BsZcYG8.jpg


Attn, @Gomez
 

littleme

250,000th poster!
The top one looks just like the one we had in the 80's.

There were 2 in the house, if someone was on the downstairs phone you could (carefully) lift the receiver upstairs & listen into the conversation.....not that I would of ever done that of course.....
 

proactive

Enjoying a drop of red.
As mentioned elsewhere, proper people still have real telephones.

This is my current one in service. It is in the hall, of course, where all decent people keep their house phone.

6KA3Fz2.jpg


The handset cord has gone a little bit 'tacky' with age, but it all still functions correctly.


And this is currently a 'project' - I really wanted the one with the onboard memory - i.e., the little drawer for the list of useful numbers at the bottom.

BsZcYG8.jpg


Attn, @Gomez
 

The Hawk

Well-Known Forumite
I've got an old bakelite telephone, similar to this one. I've used it for many years. It's a proper, solid beast with a fantastic ring.
4301.jpg
 

Glam

Mad Cat Woman
As mentioned elsewhere, proper people still have real telephones.

This is my current one in service. It is in the hall, of course, where all decent people keep their house phone.

6KA3Fz2.jpg


The handset cord has gone a little bit 'tacky' with age, but it all still functions correctly.


And this is currently a 'project' - I really wanted the one with the onboard memory - i.e., the little drawer for the list of useful numbers at the bottom.

BsZcYG8.jpg


Attn, @Gomez

Some of us haven't got houses big enough for a hall................
 

Gadget

Well-Known Forumite
My parents had the top one in the 80's, we found the same model from a few houses up their street in an antiques fair at the Showground a few years back lol. If I remember correctly B.T had it returned to them when they 'upgraded' my parents phone.
I couldn't live without my house phone. To me mobiles get used for texting or quick urgent calls whilst i'm out or for emergencies. If I want a voice conversation with someone I use my landline to their land line. If they don't have a landline, they get texted. If they are out so not answering the landline then I figure they are out and busy so certainly don't need me calling them and interrupting.
 

Jonah

Spouting nonsense since the day I learned to talk
A phone is a phone is a phone.

I use my iPhone 99.9% of the time because I pay for unlimited minutes, unlimited text and 4Gb data so I use it. I only have a landline because it works out cheaper than not having one with the package I have.
 

kyoto49

Well-Known Forumite
Lol, I didn't realise people still had actual phone connected to their landlines. I thought this was something consigned to history. The people I know with landlines only do so for the Internet, nothing else! We used to have the cream one in the OP, there was something quite therapeutic about dialling a number, but I can't say I miss being tied to sitting on the stairs for all my conversations!! How did we cope not being able to walk around how people nowadays do during mobile phone conversations! Times have changed so fast :(
 

Gramaisc

Forum O. G.
Lol, I didn't realise people still had actual phone connected to their landlines. I thought this was something consigned to history. The people I know with landlines only do so for the Internet, nothing else! We used to have the cream one in the OP, there was something quite therapeutic about dialling a number, but I can't say I miss being tied to sitting on the stairs for all my conversations!! How did we cope not being able to walk around how people nowadays do during mobile phone conversations! Times have changed so fast :(
1, I have a landline as, for an extra quid a month*, I get inclusive anytime calls to any UK, EU, North American, Australian or New Zealand landlines, up to 70 minutes at a time, end and redial if you need longer, otherwise a charge begins. I call Ireland almost daily and have customers in mainland Europe and the USA.

2, You could have a cordless phone, if walking about is essential. I prefer to sit down and have corded phones, so I know within limits where they might have been left after the last call ended. There's no need to sit on the stairs, extension sockets are an easy task to install wherever you might need them, if the cordless option doesn't suit. I only ever speak on the real phone in the hall if it rings when I'm next to it.

3, I have no wish to be contactable at all times by people who rely on mobile communications to cover up a lack of organisational skills.

4, My landline rarely looses signal. The connection is there for the broadband anyway and I doubt that I would ever get a deal that suited me better.

* I don't think this deal is available now, but they seem OK to leave mine running, after several attempts to offer me 'improved' schemes.
 

darben

Well-Known Forumite
I went back to a more traditional phone a few years ago, I was fed up with the batteries going and alarms beeping on the new fangled ones ( always in the middle of the night) plus landline is hardly used anyway so it's a more attractive & more practical option & it frees up an electric socket.
 

Gramaisc

Forum O. G.
I've never had a landline , not since I lived at home when I was a kid
I first spoke on a telephone when I was fifteen. Nobody else had a phone. Who were you going to ring, the cops, or the doctor? I knew how to make a call, with the Button A and Button B, but there just was nowhere with a phone at the other end that I might want to call.

I actually used a two-way radio long before I used a telephone.
 

Alee

Well-Known Forumite
Button a? Button b? Didn't old phones have numbers?
I'm gonna go google old phones lol I'm curious now
 

Gramaisc

Forum O. G.
Button a? Button b? Didn't old phones have numbers?
I'm gonna go google old phones lol I'm curious now
Yeah, but nobody had a phone in the house - you had to go to a call box with it's massively complicated two button arrangement.

Anyway, as late as 1978, in Ireland, I made a call on a public phone that had no dial, just a wind-up handle to signal that you were there and then you had to tell the woman in the post office what the number was - and leave some money in a cardboard box....

Interestingly, you might notice that a lot of Garda station phone numbers down the country still end in 2, as their phone number in the old days was usually 2, the Post Office itself being 1 - my bank over there still ends in a 3, as it's phone number was 3.
 
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Alee

Well-Known Forumite
Ahh yeah I just found a picture of some strange looking phone with a wind up handle, madness.
I google first telephones invented ... most of them just remind me of an old sewing machine.
Sadly i have never even seen one of the phone in your first post (in person) , although I do like them a lot .. I must just be too young hehe
 

Gramaisc

Forum O. G.
This is the old 'wind-up' Irish phone, they will have existed here, too, but not in my time, dials were universal here by the time I was aware of phones.

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kyoto49

Well-Known Forumite
1, I have a landline as, for an extra quid a month*, I get inclusive anytime calls to any UK, EU, North American, Australian or New Zealand landlines, up to 70 minutes at a time, end and redial if you need longer, otherwise a charge begins. I call Ireland almost daily and have customers in mainland Europe and the USA.

2, You could have a cordless phone, if walking about is essential. I prefer to sit down and have corded phones, so I know within limits where they might have been left after the last call ended. There's no need to sit on the stairs, extension sockets are an easy task to install wherever you might need them, if the cordless option doesn't suit. I only ever speak on the real phone in the hall if it rings when I'm next to it.

3, I have no wish to be contactable at all times by people who rely on mobile communications to cover up a lack of organisational skills.

4, My landline rarely looses signal. The connection is there for the broadband anyway and I doubt that I would ever get a deal that suited me better.

* I don't think this deal is available now, but they seem OK to leave mine running, after several attempts to offer me 'improved' schemes.


All fair points well made :) I just don't know anyone they are that relelvant to nowadays bar your good self!. There are so many other forms of communication I suspect the number of minutes people talk on the phone is massively reduced. Overseas video calls are free with skype!!! I know my teenage daughter never rings her boyfriend, kids use snapchat or instagram or some new fangled social messaging site. Compared to my teenage years I spent most evenings talking to my boyfriend/friends on the phone.All I'm saying is the old fashioned landline telephone is a rarity nowadays, none of my family have one and I suspect it's the same for many others. If we didn;t get forced to have a landline to get broadband I suspect they would have almost died out completely.

Point 3. You can turn mobile phones off/silent you know :)

Point 4. I only lose signal in Stafford town centre, and my landline handset never reached that far anyway!!! ;)
 

Gramaisc

Forum O. G.
Overseas video calls are free with skype!!!
They need the necessary equipment and the knowledge of how to use it - or a phone they just pick up and speak into when it rings...

They also don't have to check for messages via half a dozen different systems.
 

Laurie61

Well-Known Forumite
The first phone I remember was a pay phone in the pub my grandparents ran, It had A,B buttons and PBX ? on the front. The receiver was fixed to the box and it had a corded earphone. That was 1962/3.
 
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