Freephone fun

On the subject of telephones, and also partly inspired by this post by Will, I have had a wee blast-from-the-past moment that I'm going to share.

When I was a boy, the summer holidays were the cause of lots of fun. Discovering pornography was just one of the ways in which young boys amused themselves at this time of the year. Another was via the gift of the telephone...

It all seems so wrong now, as an adult, but in those halcyon pre-1471 (*69) or caller-ID days, we would make anonymous phone calls and hang up, for example. What fun!

One time I even managed to call the White House. Yes, that White House. I don't remember where we found the number, but we got through to some sort of switchboard there.

But the best thing was learning that you could make free phone calls from any call box. How was this feat achieved? Well, instead of using the dial to make a call, you would pick up the receiver and use the little buttons in the cradle. So, if you wanted to call 67538, for example, you'd bash the button six times in quick succession, then briefly pause, seven times quickly, brief pause, and so on, until all five numbers had been dialled.

You had to count correctly, of course, or you would get the wrong number. But that aside, it worked like a treat. Freephone fun. And it worked at home too, so we could make our prank calls without our parents ever being charged for them. See how considerate we were...

I've just tried it on my home phone now. It still works! Whether or not it registers as a paid call these days, though, I just don't know.