Telephone dialling code?

[keefer]

21 hours ago, TheSignalEngineer said:

more thread drift but it's getting towards Malt o'clock so how about a 'War Story'

 The tunnels it is contained in were built c1953-7 on the pretext of being preparatory works for an underground railway system. It was actually the proposed seat of regional government in case of a nuclear attack. There were two similar exchanges known as Kingsway (London) and Guardian (Manchester).

.

This popped up on my YouTube feed the other day, I've no idea why. I initially thought it was about the newspaper, but this post made me look again.

Haven't had time to watch it and can't vouch for accuracy but thought it might be of interest 

 

[Bucoops]

I think that's the tunnel that Pectel set fire to accidentally and didn't tell their insurers - so a few years later when BT came knocking with a £15m bill their insurers told them to jog on.

[Edwin_m]

 

2 hours ago, corneliuslundie said:

The other aspect of phone numbers used to be local codes, often two digits. I remember 91 from Swansea, but that was well over 50 years ago and I cannot remember what area it covered. What I do remember is that 9198 circumvented the charging system and if you knew the internal GPO codes you could phone anywhere in the country for free. I never actually needed to do it but it was a challenge one could not resist to try to find out how to route calls to places like Manchester.

But the point of mentioning this is to ask if these codes would ever have been included on publicity material such as van sides, posters or shop fascias.

Jonathan

They were only useable from an exchange that was nearby but not the same one as the destination, and I think the code to get the same destination exchange sometimes differed depending where it was dialed from.  So they would be pretty useless for advertising.  They lasted at least until the late 1980s - I remember if I pressed the first digit too quickly when calling my parents in Newcastle (091) I got a number in Mansfield (91 from Nottingham).  My recollection is that most businesses quoted the name of the exchange, or for shop fronts etc just the local part of the number without the area code (xxx xxxx if in a city with a 3-digit area code).  In the early days of mobiles a colleague of mine had one which would tell you the area code you were in, so as to be able to call those numbers.  

[TheSignalEngineer]

4 hours ago, corneliuslundie said:

The other aspect of phone numbers used to be local codes, often two digits. I remember 91 from Swansea, but that was well over 50 years ago and I cannot remember what area it covered. ............................

But the point of mentioning this is to ask if these codes would ever have been included on publicity material such as van sides, posters or shop fascias.

Jonathan

Some phones (Types 200 and 300? - Don't all put me right at once} had a draw at the bottom which held a card known as an A5599 with local dialling codes. These included exchanges outside the directory area but charged at local rates.

 

This is a Birmingham one from the early 1960s before trunk dialling and all figure numbers came in.

 

[TheSignalEngineer]

4 hours ago, keefer said:

This popped up on my YouTube feed the other day, I've no idea why. I initially thought it was about the newspaper, but this post made me look again.

Haven't had time to watch it and can't vouch for accuracy but thought it might be of interest 

Interesting video. Mostly under what is now Chinatown.

[daveyb]

I remember the short local codes being used but they had become a list in the front of the telephone directory and only a list of numbers, no letters e.g. Hatfield from 81 from St. Albans.

 

I also remember my Grandmother complaining when they started talking about 081 for outer London. When they got their telephone installed (by the Boots company so they could call my Grandfather in an emergency) their number was Fox Lane 391. My first call to that house in the 70s the number was 01 882 1391, but you could see where the number 1 had been added manuscript to the disc in the centre of the dial with 391 typed below the 999 notice.

 

The 7 was added to Harpenden numbers (as Cornelius noted) when they got their own sub exchange under the Luton code rather than the St. Albans exchange in Liverpool Road, from where my friend's mother (now in her 80s) was dismissed in 1969, unable to work through pregnancy... that wouldn't happen now!!!

 

When did Directory Enquiries change to 192 from DIR in numbers?

 

Also, I think the later changes had a lot to do with the end of relays and clicks with a move to solid state (later computer) routing and the alignment with Mobile systems. The 7 was added to all mobile numbers in 98/99 ish and Vodaphone lost the 0410 and 0401 codes whereas Cellnet kept the 0801/2/3 batches ( I'm still on 07802...). All that was something to do with Ofcom taking ownership of the numbers from BT.

 

Telex was used a lot in international transport and even some forces bases used to use it for transport booking. It was considered legally binding whereas fax was not, though when Melotexpaper finally finished plain paper fax became legally acceptable for some reason. 

 

The LT, LMR , later BR, and MoD networks all seem to have been better than their replacement, contracted solutions (under Project RODIN for the MoD). The MoD also had at least 3 secure systems with BRINTON/BRENT being a SECRET one (Top Secret codewords allowed).  That followed the compromise of RED 5 in Northern Ireland...

 

BT... We could wander further off thread and remember Maureen Lipman and before that, Buzby.

 

Sorry, that really was a yarn

Edited April 28, 2020 by daveyb
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[Methuselah]

.....and the Police were also still using Teleprinters up until 1981 or even a bit later.

[adb968008]

i remeber as a kid, dialling Bolton, was 37- (a 5 digit phone number).

it later changed to 0204 + 5 digit number.

later still it became 01204 + 5 digit

and finally 01204-5 + 5 digit number.

 

My parents phone number still has the original last 5 digits, ever since the gpo charged my dad to connect it in 1969... and I still have the GPO’s invoice somewhere.

 

 

[EddieK]

Returning to the original post that started this discussion, if some special transfers are being made, how about some transfers on black taxis that read "TOA Taxis 021 427 8888". I can still recall this from my days of further education over 35 years ago.

[melmerby]

9 hours ago, EddieK said:

Returning to the original post that started this discussion, if some special transfers are being made, how about some transfers on black taxis that read "TOA Taxis 021 427 8888". I can still recall this from my days of further education over 35 years ago.

Hasn't changed much:

[keefer]

10 hours ago, EddieK said:

Returning to the original post that started this discussion, if some special transfers are being made, how about some transfers on black taxis that read "TOA Taxis 021 427 8888". I can still recall this from my days of further education over 35 years ago.

Glasgow used to have that too, although they had two numbers - 041 332 6666 and 7070.

They also had them on hoardings on gable ends of buildings and on railway bridges.

(I was at Strathclyde Uni, late '80s)