Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
I knew my number was up when dad figured out why the bill was so high
THE PHONE
you get a bit older and head on to the dating scene and hear the words, “Do these trousers make my bum look big?”
Anyway, by this stage both Gavin and I sound like car alarms. Mum and Dad are bluffing, of course, but we don’t know that.
We think the dream is over. “Get to your beds while we pack the Capri.” We fall asleep. That deep sleep you only ever experience as a child. That deeper sleep you only ever experience as a child who’s been crying right up to the moment they fall asleep.
The dream wasn’t over, though. It hadn’t even begun . . .
PS To this day, I have never tried a Fry’s Five Centres. And I’m not sure I ever will. Anyone I asked said they’re minging anyway. AT around this time the phone was beginning to make itself a part of our lives more and more as even the most old-school families were getting one.
Remembering phone numbers was a skill that those who grew up in the 70s and 80s will be familiar with. To be fair, we had to remember them as there was nowhere to store them unless you had a wee black book.
Of course Mum and Dad had a wee tattered book with the letters of the alphabet cut into the right-hand side of the pages for quick and easy access, but there was no way that we would be putting Shirley’s or Lesley-anne’s number in to THAT!
To this day I can still remember the home numbers of about ten of my friends’ parents’ although I’m fairly sure they wouldn’t work now. For a start, numbers were a lot shorter then. No prefixes to speak of really.
Calling mates or potential girlfriends when you got a little older was an expensive hobby.
Ringing your mates was always a call that lasted in and around the 20 to 45-second mark, and the length of time was dictated mainly by who answered.
If it was your mate’s mum, you had the ten-second polite “Hello, Mrs Steenson, is Alan at home?”
[Wait for 15 seconds.]
“All right, Clem, what’s happening?” “You coming out tonight? Football at the cricky field in 20 minutes.”
“Aye.”[and hang up.]
ITEMISED
It was when those b ****** s at British Telecom brought in itemised billing that the proverbial s*** hit the fan.
I remember so clearly how I found out that those British Telecom eggheads had introduced it. Bill comes in.
Dad arrives home. I hear from inside the house: ‘WHAT THE F*** is this? Sixty-three pounds for a phone bill? F*** Buzby and his bloody adverts.’
I shake my head dismissively and continue playing with Gavin. “Flipping mum must be using the phone all the time, bro!”
“Yeah … sounds like a lot of money.”
Then I hear “NINE-TWO- SEVEN-F ***** G- EIGHT!”
Continue playing football with Gavin but somewhere in the back of my mind I’m thinking, those numbers sound familiar.
It hits me, just about the same time as the front door bursts open to reveal my dad, red-faced and holding a fistful of papers. I haven’t seen him look this angry since Gavin (and by Gavin, I mean ME) left the immersion heater on in the summer of 1984.
Each piece of paper has the T symbol at the top and a picture of that annoying wee Buzby bird. There really did seem to be quite a lot of them.
I die a little inside as I am swept inside by my dad who has me by the collar. I’m thrown on to the sofa whilst I’m read out a series of dates and times and amounts …
I went to bed with a sore behind. I wanted to call Louise and tell her the bad news, but decided it wasn’t a good time.