More seriously, we didn't have electricity, it was gas lights and cooking and battery powered wireless, but when the gas man came to emply the meter it fascinated me how fast he could count the pennies and ha'pennies and never make a mistake
For once, I agree with you, Curly.
I remember the speed too! We had electricity and gas meters - I have a feeling that only one took pennies and the other one was shillings so you needed to bowls for the coins.
I lived with my grandmother for several years and we had a coin meter on the TV!! In desperate times we had a couple of plastic 50pence pieces
Was that Rediffusion?
I remember that - and a man who came round every week to collect the TV rent. Nobody owned a TV - you paid a weekly rent and, after a few years, the TV was replaced by another TV, still rented.
Anyone who bought a TV was regarded as very wealthy!
All of this is way before my time haha I do remember a neighbour that had a bakelite phone in that style though... and we had those kind of dials on our phones back in Sweden when I grew up too. But the pay as you go meters... I had never seen them until I moved here to the UK
That was it VC! The redifussion man
He has a cup of tea in every house on his round I think
(14-08-2020, 10:42 AM)Veggie Wrote: [ -> ]Most definitely! Couldn't pass a phone box without pressing the buttons in the hope that some coins might fall out. You could do a lot with tuppence then.
I never did that with telephones but I did with the seven bridge tolls
I’m a bit younger so never did the coin operated thing. I’ve done some work for the former Just rentals family though, they became ‘buy as you view’ in the late 90’s before selling out to an American company for a substantial 7 figure sum. Nice family.
(14-08-2020, 08:56 PM)Scarlet Wrote: [ -> ] (14-08-2020, 10:42 AM)Veggie Wrote: [ -> ]Most definitely! Couldn't pass a phone box without pressing the buttons in the hope that some coins might fall out. You could do a lot with tuppence then.
I never did that with telephones but I did with the seven bridge tolls
I did the press button B to see if you got any coins back, also as a teenager in the 70’s I learned how to make free phone calls from the public phone by tapping it. I used call my friends or girlfriends from the phone box for free so I could talk without my parents hearing me.