It’s the end of the line: No more Yellow Pages

FOR more than 50 years it has sat next to the phone, solving countless domestic crises and securing local traders lucrative work. But the internet has finally killed off the Yellow Pages, its parent company Yell announced yesterday.

The first of 104 final editions of the directory of local businesses will be distributed in Kingston upon Thames, south-west London, in January 2018, with the last ever to be delivered in Brighton – where it all began in 1966 – a year later.

While Yellow Pages is still profitable, the firm acknowledged it probably would not be in a few years, because almost every business now has an online presence.

The directory will be remembered for its slogan ‘Let your fingers do the walking’ and a host of adverts, the most famous of which – from 1983 – showed an elderly man, played by Norman Lumsden, hunting for an out-of-print book – Fly Fishing by JR Hartley.

After a futile search he checks the Yellow Pages and is able to track down a copy – and we discover he is the author.

Actor James Nesbitt starred in a series of commercials for the directory, including one that showed him trapped by a dog and consulting the Yellow Pages for help.

The final print cycle of the directory marks Yell’s transition to a purely digital service. Chief executive Richard Hanscott said: ‘After 51 years in production we’re proud to say we still have customers who’ve been with us from the very first edition in 1966. We’re proud of the transformation we’ve made from print to digital.’