iPhones

I'm still practising with my new iPhone. It's truly an incredible device and although the "App Store" cheerfully informs me that I'm not authorized for some reason, I find the convenience of being able to access emails while S.W.M.B.O. is in some store quite terrific.  It reminds me of the progress of phones in my lifetime.

This is very much like the first phone my family had; heavy, and of course, black.  The essence of luxury was if you had a white one - only for the truly privileged.  I can still remember the number we had - Watford 4683.  But my grandparents (Halland 209) had an even more primitive system, where they couldn't dial anyone directly - it had to go through the operator.  Any calls outside the Watford area in our case had to go via dialing "0."

My very first job in the school holidays was operating a switchboard for a chemical company in London.  It had lots of wires and long plugs to connect the various people in the firm.

I remember writing last summer about the miracle of being able to make a call home from Michael's boat out in the Japanese Pacific from his iPhone.  Truly an amazing leap in technology for someone who still remembers his first phone number from 65 years ago.