Читать книгу The Dodo Collection - Steve Stack - Страница 28

Directory Enquiries

Where we now have two very dodgy-looking blokes with moustaches in running gear harassing Ray Parker Jr and urging us all to call 118 118, we used to have delightfully well-spoken ladies at the end of the number 192.

‘Hello, Directory Enquiries …’ they would respond, albeit after what could frequently be a rather long wait for an answer, but the mists of nostalgia can allow us to conveniently forget such trifles.

The system was pretty much the same as it is now: you would give a name and possibly an address and the operator would try to track down the phone number for you. It used to be a free service, and was just one of many phone services that the GPO operated in the days before privatisation and deregulation.

There was the speaking clock, of course, which still exists. It started out in 1936 and the first voice was that of Ethel Cain, a telephonist who entered a competition and won ten guineas for her trouble. There have actually been only three other permanent voices for the speaking clock, which receives over 60 million calls a year, but there have been special one-off voices, including that of Tinkerbell during a Disney promotion.

But do you remember the old service that allowed you to call in and listen to the latest music releases? Or the one with football scores on a Saturday? There was even a Santa line at Christmas.

Many of these have fallen by the wayside now that we have clever phones and internet and, well, just don’t use our landlines anywhere near as much, but the flurry of private directory enquiries numbers suggests that there is still plenty of demand for that service, at least.

Dodo Rating: