TELEPHONE PARTY LINE

The phone was something rich folks had in the 1950s. It wasn't until Mum developed cancer at the beginning of the 1960s that the phone was installed. We had a party line of sorts. There was one other house connected, several doors down, and a "ding" indicated when the other party was either starting or finishing a call. The phone itself was black and bakelite. It was also heavy; one didn't carry it around the house. The cord wasn't coiled and it was only long enough to run from the phone table to the wall socket. Our number I can still remember; it was 70 5197. A numerical prefix had just replaced the alphabetical one. It was extremely rare to make "trunk" calls and no doubt the only ones we ever made were to Auntie Jane up north in Harrington.