Previous home telephone,mobile phone and internet days. How did you communicate with your friends and relatives etc?

[Brandane]

When I joined the Merchant Navy in 1978 and went off on my first trip to sea, the only communication with home was by letter writing. It was quite exciting for me, as a 16 year old, to be flying off to Khorromshahr in Iran to join my first ship, knowing I was going to be away for about 6 months and not having a clue where I would be going.

As it turned out, we did 2 round trips on the Gulf/Japan route before flying home from Kuwait, and all anybody at home got was the occasional postcard or letter to let them know I was still alive! It made the homecoming all the better as there were many stories to be told.

These days, I expect sea going people update their FB page every day, on top of regular phone calls, so the mystery element will have disappeared. Progress? Not IMHO..

Edit to add.... I suspect Radio Officers are long redundant too. He was the guy who did all the ship's communication with head office, via Portishead radio. It was all done in morse code, even in the 80's. He worked all sorts of weird shifts as his messaging had to be done during UK business hours. He will have been replaced long ago by a mobile phone.

 

[numbnuts]

There was a phone box 200 yards away or we wrote letters, we didn't have a landline until 1970s

 

[Toshiba Boy]

Prior to getting our first landline in c1973, if you wanted to get a message out, you just told Jeanette down the street, and by the next day the whole estate knew it.

 

[Brandane]

I also remember as a 6 year old in 1968 when our family moved to live in Jamaica for 8 years. Again, most communication was by letter, but on special occasions like Gran's birthday, New Year, etc., we would phone home. The call had to be pre booked and connected by an operator. It was expensive, equivalent of about £1 per minute IIRC, so it was limited to a 5 minute call - and there were 5 of us all to get a word in. Maybe that is why I have grown up to be a less than chatty phone user, and very much "state your business and get off". I never have liked the things!

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

We always had a phone because my Dad's surgery was in the house - but initially most people didn't

I would often ride 30 minutes to a friend's house just presuming they would be in.

We actually lived on a main road (no - don't go all 4 Yorkshire Men - in a house next to a main road) in the centre of the town
Opposite - and about 30-40 yards down was a phone box - normal red one with a door
It is amazing how many teenage girls can fit into one phone box so they can all participate in the conversation despite hand free not being a thing yet
A few would be outside crowded around the door - but if it was raining they seemed to multistack somehow

I have no idea what they talked about!!!

 

[oldwheels]

Letters or postcard mostly. In my teens I went off cycle touring for a few weeks with little idea where we were going and nobody thought much about it. Sent a couple of postcards back sometimes.
My girl friend [later my wife]and myself wrote a lot when we were some distance apart with the very occasional phone call.
When son no 2 was working in all sorts of strange places in the Middle East it was mostly weekly phone calls.
For a brief spell in the 1950's I was a telegram boy in Helensburgh. Hated the job and got back to regular deliveries as soon as possible. I never knew what I was delivering and had to wait for an answer if required. I dreaded being the bearer of bad news.

 

[MichaelW2]

Anyone remember "party lines". No mirrors, razor blades or white powder involved.

 

[CanucksTraveller]

We just knocked on doors to see who was in... if a mate wasn't in, you asked his mum where he'd gone, and if it was nearby you might head there to find them.
We had a phone at home but it was really for talking to relatives, or for my older sister to talk to lads and enrage my dad by inflating his phone bill. I don't think it ever occurred to me that I could ring my friends, or maybe the idea didn't appeal. I just went out knocking on doors to see who was free.

Later on, when just about grown up and posted to Germany, I would write air mail letters to my now wife. I'd save up all the 2 Deutschmark coins I could find during the week and call her from a phone box.

 

[BoldonLad]

Cannot answer your question, but, I have often wondered same. My parents never had a phone. Our relations on my Fathers side, mostly, lived several miles away. We did visit (it was an arduous bus journey). They always seemed to be in, and, expecting us. How did they know?

 

[Ming the Merciless]

Just rode or walked over to mates. For a night out we’d agree a pub and time and meet there. For hill walks we would agree a bus to catch and get on at different stops. No communication home when at University.

 

[Brains]

When I first started working for a shipbroking company in the City in 1976.

Calls home to Cornwall were via the operator, direct dialling to Cornwall only became available in about 1980!
Work calls to the USA needed Partner approval, and you were given a stop clock to time the call.
Work calls to Europe needed director approval. and they would normally listen into the call to ensure you did not waffle!
All written communication was via letter or telex.

As for fiends, we either knocked on doors, or met up in the central 'shelter' every day after homework and before supper.

 

[JtB]

Communication with the then future Mrs JtB involved receiving a letter from her in Spanish, a 200 mile drive north to my friend in Manchester to get the letter translated, writing a response, getting the response translated into Spanish, posting the response, a 200 mile drive south back home and then waiting for the next letter to arrive from Spain.

PS. There were landline phones, but they were expensive and the then future Mrs JtB and I couldn’t speak each others’ languages.

 

[beanzontoast]

We had no phone at home when I was a child in the 50s. The general shop in the village had a phone and as we were regulars, would take urgent messages for people from time to time.

I remember one morning there was a knock on the door, and there stood the sombre-faced shopkeeper who normally sold me my penny chocolate bars. He’d walked up the steep hill from his shop to our house a mile away to tell my mum that her mother, who lived in the city, had died.

 

[Teamfixed]

Paradiddles with the occasional ratamacue.

 

[MntnMan62]

Paradiddles with the occasional ratamacue.

What? No flams? No ruffs?