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Old 30th May 2020, 4:24 am   #21
Hermitcrab
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Default Re: Dialling Code Booklets, your memories?

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Originally Posted by Pellseinydd View Post
Any later 'STD codebook' than this London October 1988 one - date in top righthand corner ?

Note the coloured cover following the format introduced when the 'Telephone Directory' became 'The Phone Book' in mid-1984.
I have never seen that code book! It would seem rather pointless as I would have thought all phone books included dialling codes well before 1988.
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Old 30th May 2020, 4:31 am   #22
Hermitcrab
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Default Re: Dialling Code Booklets, your memories?

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Originally Posted by Pellseinydd View Post
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dave Moll View Post
As a matter of interest, when did local codes cease to exist? I assume that local dialling code books were unnecessary thereafter. Did local lists continue in telephone directories (or rather "The Phone Book") after 1988?
23rd June 1995 was when the last ones went out of use - I was there at the time sad probably made one! They were still in the phone book until then but as Linked Numbering Schemes came into being, they tended to disappear and they tended to use (as they do now) the STD code but charged as a 'local' call.

The last 'Phonebook' for this area was November 1993 and it still had a few local codes for exchanges not in an LNS. The next one was May 1995 but all local exchanges were in an LNS and hence contains just a full 'national list' of codes. But Ive only just noticed that there was also a 'local' Code-Decoder for all the exchanges in the area covered by our local 'Phonebook' !
I haven't got any other 1994 Phonebooks or early 1995 Phonebooks to hand so can't say for those but don't doubt the 1994 ones would have had them in.
Phoneday was 16 April 1995, and I always thought all local codes were discontinued by then. However, if it was 23 June then that was only a couple of months later, do you know which exchanges were the last ones to lose their local codes?
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Old 30th May 2020, 11:18 am   #23
Pellseinydd
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Default Re: Dialling Code Booklets, your memories?

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Originally Posted by Hermitcrab View Post
<snip>

Phoneday was 16 April 1995, and I always thought all local codes were discontinued by then. However, if it was 23 June then that was only a couple of months later, do you know which exchanges were the last ones to lose their local codes?
The last three with local codes were in the SC003 charge group to the south of Lanark which was on level 93 from Lanark with the STD code 0864 X.
Crawford on the A74, Crawford John to the north west and Elvanfoot to the south.

They were all dialling 9 to reach Lanark until 23rd June.
At 10am two were changed over -
Elvanfoot (0864 5) a UAX13R in the middle of nowhere on the A702 road to Dumfries from Elvanfoot. It had just over 50 lines on it having been converted from a UAX12 with the coming of STD.
The other was a UAX13 at Crawford John (0864 4) with just over 50 lines.

Then at just before 10.30am the 'ceremony' of what BT thought was the 'last public electro-mechanical exchange' in the UK network took place at Crawford on a now bypassed section of the old A74 to the north of Crawford. There a BT engineer by the name of Bob Hope (not the one you're thinking of ;-) ) cut the cables on the MDF Of the 600 line SAX then two children from the local primary school pulled the wedges out to bring the new exchange into service. All thee exchanges became 6 digit numbers in the 0864 LNS and dialled the STD code to reach Lanark. This took place in front of the twenty or so of us squashed into the tiny building - Directors of BT, GPT(who had provided the new exchange and the Press & TV. BT had hoped for 'national' publicity being the end of an £11 billion project. Sadly never made it as John Major resigned as Chairman of the Tory party and there wasn't time for BT's bit. Luckily I captured the entire ceremony from before 10am until after the Crawford change-over on video. Plus it wasn't the ' last public electro-mechanical exchange' - that was almost a month later! But that's another story.
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Old 30th May 2020, 11:26 am   #24
Peter.N.
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Default Re: Dialling Code Booklets, your memories?

We had dialing code booklets when we moved here to Dorset from Kent in 1970, prior to that we didn't even have a dial!

Our number was Charmough 556 we had a two tone green phone on the wall. Back in Kent we were Borough Green 3333 which was useful especially as I ran a business there, but were still on a manual exchange.

My first job in London had the number City 1124, didn't need dialing code books as there weren't any dialing codes.

Peter
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Old 30th May 2020, 6:45 pm   #25
Pellseinydd
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Default Re: Dialling Code Booklets, your memories?

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Originally Posted by Peter.N. View Post
We had dialing code booklets when we moved here to Dorset from Kent in 1970, prior to that we didn't even have a dial!

Our number was Charmough 556 we had a two tone green phone on the wall. Back in Kent we were Borough Green 3333 which was useful especially as I ran a business there, but were still on a manual exchange.

My first job in London had the number City 1124, didn't need dialing code books as there weren't any dialing codes.

Peter
Talking about 'lack of codes' - any other lists as short as this one? It was for telephones on a temporary mobile exchange with 649 lines on it that was a 'relief exchange to the 'exhausted' vintage UAX7 'South Benfleet' exchange which had about 2500 lines on it. Thundersley was in use from September 1965 until September 1967 when the lines were moved onto the new larger South Benfleet non-Director exchange which had nearly 7000.lines by 1972!
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