Opening Titles

Introduction - The age of the landline. A time when phones weren't pocket-sized wireless devices, but bulky objects wired into our homes and workplaces. Over the course of 100 years, engineers rolled out a communications network that joined up Britain - a web of more than 70 million miles of wire. Telephones were agents of commercial and social change, connecting businesses and creating new jobs for Victorian women.

In 1877, Scottish-born inventor Alexander Graham Bell returned to Britain from America to showcase a revolutionary new electric device - the telephone. After impressing Queen Victoria, Bell helped drive uptake of the telephone in Britain, tapping into the growth of a growing commercial phenomenon - the office (Professor Brian Wilson, University of Lincoln). Initially Private instruments, point to point circuits (David Hay, BT Archives). Soon, whole networks of telephone lines were being built, connected together by exchange switchboards. No dials, connected by physical plugs by operators (Professor Nigel Linge, University of Salford). A tangle of wired in the sky. Female switchboard operators were preferred by telephone companies as they were cheaper and perceived as more polite, opening up new employment opportunities for women in late Victorian Britain.

The Telephone in The home of Victorian Society, a social leveller, new handset designs (Deyan Sudjic, The Design Museum, London).

Switchboards: Whole networks of telephone lines connected together by exchange switchboards. Female switchboard operators preferred by telephone companies (cheaper and more polite), opening up new employment opportunities for well-spoken women in late Victorian Britain (Dr Lucy Delap, Murray Edwards College, Cambridge) (Gill Holt, Directory Enquiries Operator)(Sandra Blackwell, Gene Toms, Gladys Hale, Switchboard Operators)'Number Please'

The Phone Box: The public call box emerged. When the GPO - the General Post Office - took over(nationalised) the private networks, it initially struggled to find an acceptable design, and met some resistance to its now iconic bright red colour. Box Vandalism. The K1, The K2, The K6 - Red, grey and cream in Kingston Upon Hull.

The Big Push to get more to use the phone service from the home: The 1930's: (Rachel Boon, University of Manchester). New phone designs with a dial and automatic exchanges instead of operators (John Liffen, The Science Museum London)(Almon Brown Strowger)

Post Office (GPO) attracting new users of the phone to make it ubiquitous (Clement Atlee) alongside the radio and cars. Emergency Use, 999, source of instant information: the Speaking Clock from Dollis Hill from glass plate recordings of Ethel Jane Cain;

Telephone Archive footage 'Put you through' song

Telephones: The home front during the war, effort redirected to the military effort, many new installations needed, operators working through air-raids, the Faraday Exchange. Prioritising important calls, D Day (Gene Toms. Switchboard Operator)

Telephones: Rebuilding the network after the war, long waiting lists, roaming engineers re-building, maintaining and expanding the network (Jim Coombe, GPO Engineer), health & safety attitudes, team of engineers at every exchange fault finding and fixing, small personal telephone exchanges, difficult customers (Dez Flahey, GPO Engineer)

Telephones: The Party Line sharing and STD (Subscriber Trunk Dialling), long distance calls without operator assistance but with longer dial numbers with area codes (Glady Hale, Switchboard Operator), an automated network

Telephones: Living the dream in the 1960s: New style fashionable phone choices (Deyan Sudjic, The Design Museum, London), the Trimphone (Tone Ring Illuminator Model), radioactive glow in the dark

Telephones: 4.3 million subscribers but Poor Service from GPO (Rt.Hon. Anthony Wedgewood Benn MP, Postmaster General) even for Trumpton, worse for public telephone phone boxes

Telephones: The 60'sinto the 70s: Use microwaves for call capacity and the BT Tower as a tall antenna for this (150,000 calls handled simultaneously via the BT Tower), catering for everyone, the last manual exchange in the 1970s (Dr Lucy Delap, Murray Edwards College, Cambridge), 'Phone home' in the 1970s

Telephones: Talk more and worry less about the cost in the 1970s - Buzby.

Telephones: BT Sold off in 1984 alongside the arrival of the cellular mobile phone, which did not mean the death of the landline -The internet uses the landline phone network and the landline lives on

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