If you ever had a traditional dial phone at home....

spark240 · October 2023

Did you answer it and say the number ?

I seem to recall when we first had a home phone ( party line with next door....much fun) when it rang...my parents would pick it up and say 5256...(it was only 4 digits back then.)

CoffeeAndTV · October 2023

My dad still does, he announces the town and then the four digit number…

boogieman · October 2023

We had one, we always just said the last four digits. The format was originally the name of the local exchange (Dollis Hill/ DOL in our case) followed by the numbers. It switched to all numbers in the late 60s I think? My mum still had the same number up till last year.

munckee · October 2023

My mum used to say the town name and phone number in an artificially posh voice.

JerkMoans · October 2023

My stepmother still does. "Sheffield xxxx"

Snags · October 2023

Yes. Town and number. Including when it went to 6 digits.

JerkMoans · October 2023

JerkMoans said:

My stepmother still does. "Sheffield xxxx"

Which might be interpreted as some weirdly S Yorks porny thing. Which is a bit odd

Stratavarious · October 2023

Eons ago… yes

Dominic · October 2023

Yes , we just used to say 3399 in our home but my Grandmother used to say Enterprise 2462 (their dial code was ENT )
Who knows who said Pensylvania 6500 ?

EricTheWeary · October 2023

Gosh long time ago yes “hello, 762790.” I guess it dates from people making a lot of miscalls. We were also one digit away from a carpet fitter so it helped reduce the number of enquiries about shagpiles.
I haven’t had a landline now for, I don’t know, maybe ten years.

exocet · October 2023

My Dad still answers his phone with the original 3 digit number "541".

I can remember answering with the town name followed by the revised (STD compliant) 6 digit number.

My standards have slipped since then.

Danny1969 · October 2023

4291

Emp_Fab · October 2023

Our number was 57630. My dad always remembered it as 'Heinz at half past six'.

We also had a Trimphone with the radioactive dial.

Kittyfrisk · October 2023

I still have a GPO red type 706 that I love, but while I can answer it, sadly progress has rendered it unable to dial out from.
No, I never announce the number on that or my new IP capable phone, usually just wait for the scammer to hang up.

I simply can't describe how deliciously furiously thrilled I am when looking forward to losing all means of communication during the frequent rural power cuts, once they switch to Broadband/IP telephony to 'improve' my service...

blobb · October 2023

small Welsh village, all the numbers were sequential. we were 201, the garage next door was 200, the next house was 202 and so on.

ICBM · October 2023

My parents still do.

I can always tell when it's them calling me too... because the landline phone rings.

I'm honestly not sure why I bother with it any more. I still actually have an old phone which doesn't need external power that I can plug into the master socket if there's a power failure, but when the exchanges go completely digital then that won't work and there will probably be no point at all.

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If you ever had a traditional dial phone at home....

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