I’m scared of our landline, but it deserves a lifeline

Isurely can’t be the only one mourning the threatened demise of the landline due to a rise in nuisance calls? I’m coming over all nostalgic, but, in the same hypocritical way as I felt sad about the loss of BHS and Jaeger, even though I never shopped at either.

On those occasions that the house phone rings, I jump out of my seat in surprise and then stare at it, all the while refusing to answer it – with good reason. It’s usually a charming Italian woman who is stalking us from a variety of internationally routed numbers because, in a moment of giddy affluence, I was once persuaded to order organic produce from her.

It cost twice the amount charged by our local deli, and my husband was exasperated, verging on quite cross about my decadence.

Then a few months later, the phone rang again; I don’t believe anyone else had called in the interim. Anyway, he picked up and was promptly flattered into placing an even bigger order.

Though we are scared of the house phone, it has its uses. For one, I use it to ring out, which is maybe the way forward for all of us who don’t regard state-of-the-art smartphones as an incontrovertible human right.

I find it impossible to have an important conversation on a mobile phone, doubly so when the other person is walking around House of Fraser, sitting on a train or even on the loo; 3G is no respecter of personal boundaries. The other major plus is that it’s easy to monitor phone use. Yes, children, we deliberately installed the phone in the draftiest point of the hallway, just by the front door.

My generation was too busy playing with clackers and watching mildly racist sitcoms to have lengthy phone conversations with anybody. I recall my mother investing in a phone lock to underline family policy on wasting one’s time and money speaking to friends and, worse, boyfriends.

It is impossible to impede the march of progress, I suppose, but I’d be sad to lose my landline; not because it’s a link to the wider world, but a thread that leads back to my own past.