My first penny slot machine !

[alan57]

The nursing home has a special present for Vanessa as she approaches 3 figures

[coppinpr]

last time I heard from Vanessa she was doing so well she was thinking of opening another pair of legs in Birmingham!

I asked her how much she took per night and she said £85.25p, I asked who gave her 25p..she said ..they all did

[operator bell]

Have you got more pics Alan, great old boxes these.

I well remember as a little lad in the 1950s we used to go into these telephone boxes and were able to ring numbers without paying. We would lift the receiver and for every single number within the telephone number, we would tap the 'cut off' buttons under the handset that amount of time. ... I have no idea how this worked

Well, the way it worked is that's exactly how the dial did it - broke the circuit briefly, one to ten times depending how far it was turned. Back at the exchange, there was a delay relay across the line that was too slow to drop out on the interruptions - this held the line open - and a fast relay that did drop out on the breaks and generated the pulses to step the selectors.

I had a friend who worked at the exchange who told me they'd be in there at night and when they heard someone tapping out a call - they could tell because the pulses were irregular - they'd stand by the switch and the moment the called number started to ring, they'd reset the connection. The caller would inevitably try again, and again, and again ...

[arrgee]

Thanks for that interesting explanation O.B. I remember one instance when we kept tap dialing a certain number the woman obviously worked out it was kids playing around and shouted down the line "if you don't stop this I am sending the police round" That shook us and we ran off at high speed not realising that she had no idea where we were phoning from!!

[chris rideout]

Have you got more pics Alan, great old boxes these.

I well remember as a little lad in the 1950s we used to go into these telephone boxes and were able to ring numbers without paying. We would lift the receiver and for every single number within the telephone number, we would tap the 'cut off' buttons under the handset that amount of time. ... I have no idea how this worked

Well, the way it worked is that's exactly how the dial did it - broke the circuit briefly, one to ten times depending how far it was turned. Back at the exchange, there was a delay relay across the line that was too slow to drop out on the interruptions - this held the line open - and a fast relay that did drop out on the breaks and generated the pulses to step the selectors.

I had a friend who worked at the exchange who told me they'd be in there at night and when they heard someone tapping out a call - they could tell because the pulses were irregular - they'd stand by the switch and the moment the called number started to ring, they'd reset the connection. The caller would inevitably try again, and again, and again ...

You could dial 0 for the operator, 191 for enquiries, and 999 for emergency services. The numbers 1, 9, 0 worked without inserting coins. Other numbers (2 to 8) could be obtained by "cradle tapping" When you put the coins in, the dial worked on all numbers but the microphone cut out. When the person at the other end answered, you pressed button A and this cut your microphone in but caused the dial to revert to the "1, 9, 0 only" mode. If you wanted to call someone with the number 2900 or 2901, all you needed to do was tap the 2, and dial the other digits.

Button B had a timer fitted to it. If you called the operator for a trunk call, you would be told to insert the money and the operator would connect you. It would be possible to give a quick jab on button B to get your money back without the operator noticing the light on the switchboard coming on (or off - not sure) but the timer gave an extra 5 or 6 seconds so the operator would almost certainly notice what you had done. The last time I had used these black and silver contraptions was on the Isle of Wight in early 1974. I think the Newbury area kept theirs a bit longer. I was surprised that the Shetland Isles did not dispose of the black and silver equipment until the mid 1980s. Did BT forget that it was there?

Some fraudulent callers did end up in court for trying to save a few pennies but it was unusual. In the papers, you would read: "A Post Office Telephones spokesman refused to say how this was done". Hardly surprising. After all, we don't everyone to know, do we?