In message , Roland
Perry writes

Snip

What, I hear you ask, would I have done before the days of mobile
phones? I've had one since 1988, so we are going back a fair way, but
the answer is that I employed a fulltime secretary to organise such
things for me when I was otherwise uncontactable, and whose job it was
to make sure that when I went out she knew the landline numbers of
everywhere I was likely to be (and the names of the secretaries of all
the people I was visiting).

In the days before mobile phones I travelled all over Wales and the West
Country organising OBs. I managed perfectly well with telephone boxes
and hotel phones. And those were the days when phone boxes were
regularly vandalised.

Mike
--
M.J.Powell