Sunny Saturday

First thing most Saturdays I am round here attempting to find fruit and veg that will keep my slim lithe fifteen and a half stone.  I have been attempting to lose weight, especially when it touched 16 stone again recently and have decided a more disciplined routine is required.  This means less home made oatcakes, flapjacks and shortbread.  The trouble with such goodies is the tendency to be fattening, especially as I tend to eat them all, quickly!  So once again I was at the markets best fruit and veg stall seeking the weeks supply.  Bananas, apples, small orange things, and so on.  Naturally, as I settled down to watch the football on BBC Alba I was stuffing my face with chips!  

Well I was hungry......

Wandering about in the early morning sunshine, the wind still from Siberia, I photographed some buildings for the house project.  Amongst Grade II listed buildings we find this telephone box.  Designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott in 1935 and produced by a variety of manufacturers, these are fast disappearing from our streets.  The use of mobile phones, plus the majority of homes possessing land lines, such boxes are falling out of use and into disrepair.  Many have gone altogether but surely there is a need for a few to remain?  This is a very thin picture because the box now sits in the midst of scaffolding as the 'Swan' pub is repainted. Otherwise it would stand out from the pub which may  have stood here for seven hundred years.  

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The Days of Not So long Ago!

Watching a poor actor, that's poor in acting ability not cash, I was intrigued by the need to actually dial a number on the round dial of the aged phone he was using. How long ago is it since we used such old fashioned equipment? Well, not very long ago actually! The speed at which life changes appears to get faster with each passing day. If you happen to be a youthful geek then it is possible to understand a small hand held device that not only males phone calls but acts like a computer, makes the tea and Hoovers the house. However if you have known something of life such devices are somewhat irritating, even when useful. I came here thirteen years ago from the centre of London, and London was quite pleased I can tell you! However I had to spend several minutes in a phone box, a big red thing designed in the thirties, call an almost helpful operator and demand a phone was installed in the pig-pen. This duly arrived, late, and as far as I can recall it was a proper white phone with a dial. You never see them now! Today there is a generation to whom the phrase 'Press Button 'B' and get your money back' is meaningless! OK, I realise you will all pretend you belong to this generation. In the days before decimalisation phone boxes collected (usually 4) old pennies for each call. There were two big buttons marked 'A' and 'B.' If the called number answered you pressed button 'A' and the money dropped in and your call went ahead. If there was no answer button 'B' was pressed and your four big coins dropped out into your hand. Today's generation (Including you) has no idea about such things. Nor do they appreciate the need to use the digit finger to choose a number on a dial and slowly, oh so slowly, turn the dial at each number to make a phone call. This lot just press a few buttons, or for the regulars on their phone, just press one from a list of names and the call goes ahead (today's generation always get answers from their fellow brats as they are always on the phone).

I remember the days when we could not afford telephones, they were for the middle classes, not us. However one distant aunt possessed a big black creature not unlike the one pictured. It had a distinct 'bell like' ring which you hear on old black and white British films of the fifties. The wire was always inclined to twist into a mess ensuring that answering the phone led to several minutes of fighting with the cord before conversation could take place. By the seventies almost everyone had one and the phone people began upgrading the service and have never stopped since! However it is only a few years ago I am talking about, not just the black phones of the fifties, but the red fancy ones of the nineties also - they have all disappeared! Life moves too fast for me!



I mean look at this beauty! I used to use one of them when working nights in the hospital. Small and quite easy to use when it was quiet but slightly complicated when flustered if busy. The real busy time was late at night when the nurses would phone home and say 'Good night darling' to their loved one, or early in the morning when the same lass called home and voiced 'WHERE ARE YOU, I WANT TO COME HOME, NOW!' Shortly afterwards he would arrive half dressed. These boxes opened in two parts, the hinge was on the left hand side. This produced the funniest moment as the engineer unfortunately opened the box and dropped the whole thing while attempting to service the beast. His language was somewhat unfortunate, and not helped by our convulsed laughing. The pictures come from this fascinating site, 'Telephones UK' Brilliant stuff!




Also bewildering to this spoilt generation (No I am not jealous) is the television with big round dials. These were useful in combating the 'couch potatoes' of the day as in 1957 the Independent television service was introduced. This gave competition to the BBC, until then the only TV channel in existence, and forced people to get up from their seat, cross the eight feet to the set, and turn the (difficult) dial to the other side. Usually there were cowboy films (always in black and white of course) on both at the same time of course, cowboy films which still appear far too regularly for my liking I can tell you, even today! At least it gave exercise, now all the exercise is for women. They exercise their tongues complaining men hog the 'remote.' This is not true, men just get rightly fed up with the meaningless pap which dominates the coverage and appears to be watched by women determined to obtain Alzheimer's earlier than they should. But again it was a dial, now we press a button, if we can get the remote, and if the battery has not died. Colour TV only arrived here in the seventies, and half the nation, if not more, cannot understand watching black and white telly. Yet I was using one until 1989!

These are small things, but they were items in use just yesterday.
I wonder what we will use tomorrow.....?