How would we have coped?

[derek kelly]

During the Covid lockdown we were fortunate to have the internet where we logged on & chatted shit as we normally do, there were many people living on their own who also used the internet such as Whatsapp & facetime to keep in touch, imagine if there was no internet, how would people have coped?

 

[Cougar377]

Telephones.

 

[derek kelly]

Telephones.

But Whatsapp & facetime are free & you can speak to multiple people.

 

[Minkey]

Personally I don't think I would have managed if I hadn't been able to zoom chat my brother or my camera club, even with that I went back to work as soon as the shop reopened (5 weeks) some people were furloughed for 7 months but they lived with their family

 

[Cougar377]

But Whatsapp & facetime are free & you can speak to multiple people.

You asked ......"imagine if there was no internet, how would people have coped?" ....... Correct me if I'm wrong, but WhatsApp and Facetime don't work too well with no interweb.


When I was a kid we had one public telephone box in the village, the next available phones were at the hotel 10 miles up the lochside, in the next village 8 miles down the lochside or in the village on the other side of the loch.
No-one had a home telephone, so everyone used the public one to phone friends and family and it was used a lot. If the phone rang then if someone heard it (usually us kids playing nearby) then they'd answer, find out who it was for and fetch them to the phone.

We also found a way of bodging it so that you could make free calls.

 

[Pow-Lo]

During the Covid lockdown we were fortunate to have the internet where we logged on & chatted shit as we normally do, there were many people living on their own who also used the internet such as Whatsapp & facetime to keep in touch, imagine if there was no internet, how would people have coped?

Imagine the peace and quiet.

 

[Malone]

Imagine too, how much money I’d have saved not being able to buy essentials, like spares for motorbikes

 

[derek kelly]

You asked ......"imagine if there was no internet, how would people have coped?" ....... Correct me if I'm wrong, but WhatsApp and Facetime don't work too well with no interweb.


When I was a kid we had one public telephone box in the village, the next available phones were at the hotel 10 miles up the lochside, in the next village 8 miles down the lochside or in the village on the other side of the loch.
No-one had a home telephone, so everyone used the public one to phone friends and family and it was used a lot. If the phone rang then if someone heard it (usually us kids playing nearby) then they'd answer, find out who it was for and fetch them to the phone.

We also found a way of bodging it so that you could make free calls.

I know that there was the telephone but a few minutes call on a telephone would still leave people feeling lonely.

 

[andyBeaker]

When I was at my lowest during covid recently it was good to come on here and dick about a bit, particularly enjoyed the total”lack of sympathy.

Thank you everyone for helping to keep my spirits up.

 

[Cougar377]

I know that there was the telephone but a few minutes call on a telephone would still leave people feeling lonely.

Phone calls had a different perspective about them back then....or they certainly did where I lived.

Because it didn't happen every day (unlike social media) villagers made more of an event out of making or receiving phone calls from friends and family. It was a talking point for some time afterwards with your neighbours, with almost everyone in the village sharing their news from those phone calls.....whether it was good or bad news.

In turn, that information would be passed up and down the lochside between friends in different villages.

As an example - I remember when the McLeod's son Norman took a years secondment from the Forestry Commission to the Canadian equivalent, everyone on the lochside would regularly get updates on how he was doing. I learned about time zones from when he used to phone, as he'd phone in the morning at weekends but it was afternoon in Britain.
Everyone asked after him and if you passing our village then you might pop in to the McLeod's for a cup of tea and a biscuit to hear how he was doing.

 

[derek kelly]

We didn’t have a phone until my Mother died in 1976 by which time I was two yesrs into my Navy career

 

[slim63]

I was also bought up in what was then a small village where nobody had phones except the bus garage and the lady at the shop, both would take a couple of calls a week for various folk around the village and us kids would have to go and fetch them, we usually got a couple of pence for sweets for the errand

If covid had happened back then I doubt much would have changed apart from us tearaways having a long school holiday, the pit men would still have gone to work the ladies would have still have done whatever it is they did but maybe at a distance

 

[Squag1]

Same. One phone box.
People waiting outside for a call from England. Probably the husband who couldn't get work locally.

3 phones that I know of originally,
doctor, priest and cop shop where I lived.
The number was 003 think, definitely 3.

Remember the automatic exchange arriving. Prefab erected in "our yard"
A huge bank of batteries on one wall.
And racks of gizmos going click click.

 

[Duck n Dive]

I remember the first phone we ever had in the house.

We'd moved to another house and it already had a "party line" phone.

 

[andyBeaker]

As far as I can remember we always had a phone during my tender years…lived in police accommodation until 1965 and maybe there were phones there as the residents were frequently ‘on call’? Parents first ‘own home’ definetely had a phone when we moved in during 1965…the number was ‘Vigilant 365’.

As an aside, my tender years were in Kings Croft which was police flats on Kings Avenue in Brixton/Clapham…..now private ‘luxury apartments’ , last one that I saw for sale was getting on for £1m…….

 

[Me!]

I know that there was the telephone but a few minutes call on a telephone would still leave people feeling lonely.

Or bored Dirk if you were relaying your days timeline?

 

[derek kelly]

Or bored Dirk if you were relaying your days timeline?

Better than showing pictures of my dinner