Pay-phones

[remember]

Once upon a time, pay-phones/public telephones used to only cost 5p to call someone. Now you hardly get to say much at all for a minimum of 20p. British Telecom must have spent millions on repairing damaged phone-boxes over the years; If they were really clever, they could have given every home free phones like they do in America, and they could have sewn up the market before all the open-competition of the variable phone companies. These days, most pay-phones where I live either smell of urine so you wouldn't want to hang around long enough to make a call, or they don't work anyway. Now that most people own a mobile phone, they've lost their main purpose in life, but the red ones will always remain iconic in London life - and when you're in a real emergency and your mobile's run out of battery!

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[Heather74]

Re: Pay-phones

I remember them having a minium charge of 10p, call to the operator and 192 were free, we spent quite a few dinner hours trying to find out boys telephone numbers

Minium charge around here is now 40p not 20p, I locked myself out a few weeks ago, my mobile was inside the house, worse thing was I only had a pound coin and got no blimming change

[ClaudineJones]

Re: Pay-phones

I remember them having two slots - one for 2p local calls (I think you got 3 minutes) and one for 10p long distance. Sometimes you could fool them into accepting an old ha'penny which was roughly the same size as a 2p coin and saved you a whole one and a half pence!

[Richard1978]

Re: Pay-phones

I remember when the first card phones came out in the early 1980s, it seemed really futuristic at the time.

It's slightly odd that these all went a few years ago, in some countries they got rid of cash phones & introduced tokens or cards. I still remember learning what a Jeton was in French.

The last time I used a pay phone was when my ex-girlfriend was in China & I called her on an international call card. My mobile wouldn't let me use the 0800 connection number for free.

[rossobantam]

Re: Pay-phones

yep 2p slot for me too!

And ..weren't the red phone box doors ever SOOOOO heavy to open??

[kazboot]

Re: Pay-phones

And ..weren't the red phone box doors ever SOOOOO heavy to open?? [/QUOTE]
Yes they were, nearly did yourself a mischief opening them!

I do miss the old iconic red phone boxes though, would love to buy one for the garden.

[HG]

Re: Pay-phones

We still have 4 in the market place here in Durham. Shortly they'll be gone though as consultants engaged in redeveloping the market place have decided they should go.

[kazboot]

Re: Pay-phones

Thats really sad HG.
Lovely pic, looks like a nice pub.

[rossobantam]

Re: Pay-phones

I despise 'consultants'

(except the medical type of course )

Paid a fortune to either a) state the bleedin' obvious or b) change summat that didn't NEED changing

Why don't they EVER come up with the answer that says do NOTHING, to just leave things be?

[liferocks]

Re: Pay-phones

I remember the old boxes with button A and button B we used to make free local calls by pushing the bar across in the coin slot with a lolly stick.

Nice to see the old phone boxes in Durham I was up there a few weeks back. Would be a shame to loose them

[HG]

Re: Pay-phones

Thats really sad HG.
Lovely pic, looks like a nice pub.

Long time since I've been in there, it used to be quite rough n ready, think it's ok now though.

[HG]

Re: Pay-phones

I despise 'consultants'

(except the medical type of course )

Paid a fortune to either a) state the bleedin' obvious or b) change summat that didn't NEED changing

Why don't they EVER come up with the answer that says do NOTHING, to just leave things be?

They're the bane of my life, they are quite often responsible for me coming home from work in a bad mood.

It's justifies their existence, and working in the public sector with the job I have I know how much they get for talking *******.

[Richard1978]

Re: Pay-phones

Are there any of those 1960s - 70s phone boxes with a single pane of glass in each side still around?

Up to the late 1980s there seemed to be loads around, the Mersey Way shopping precinct in Stockport had a bank of about 8 in the 1980s, & for some reason some were painted yellow at one time, judging by an old photo.

The last one I remember seeing was a blue Underground Signalling box on the end of a tube station between Wembley Park & Baker Street.

[vanhelsing]

Re: Pay-phones

There're one across the road from me,