"Annabel Smyth" wrote in message
...

Indeed; my father said that even as long after the 2nd World War as 1952
(when he was engaged to my mother and seconded to London from his normal
offices near Oxford), a domestic phone was not a priority. I don't
remember us not having one, but I would have been 3 or 4 before I became
aware of it.

But I was probably ten or eleven - or even older - before we lost the
girl who said "Number please" when you picked up the phone....

We got our first phone in late 1961, a few months after we had moved into
our first house. Neither of our parents had felt the need for a phone.
Indeed, my father-in-law would not have one, because he would get called out
too frequently. In his own words, "If the Bu**ers want me that badly, they
can come and fetch me". Trouble at t'mill still occurred frequently. Then he
got the phone put in to pacify his better half and found that he could solve
most of the problems on the phone.

Incidentally, our first phone was automatic, but we could only dial numbers
on our own exchange. Bakewell was manual and we had to go through the
operator to contact the outside world. Both Bakewell and Buxton stayed
manual for some years after we had moved away IIRC.
--
Terry Harper, Web Co-ordinator, The Omnibus Society
75th Anniversary 2004, see http://www.omnibussoc.org/75th.htm
E-mail:
URL: http://www.terry.harper.btinternet.co.uk/