Telephone user, 1960s : Mr E Donald

Transcript

I recall the story of the very first telephone box; it was in the village where my father grew up. When one farmer's wife was in need of the doctor, I think through delivery of a child they sent the farmer down to phone for the doctor and when he came back the doctor didn't appear and they asked if he had phoned and he'd gone in the phone box and he'd shouted for the doctor, he had no idea. Eighty years later children of seven are calling each other and text messaging each other on their mobiles. When I first started travelling internationally, we go back to 1964, to make a telephone call home you would go to the local telephone exchange and wait your turn and sometimes wait for many hours until you got a line through. When I landed in Baku airport just back a few years ago, whilst I was waiting for my luggage to come through I brought out my mobile and dialled my wife and spoke to her as if she were, you know, in the next room.