Phone Book

[Viv of Ginger Pop]

I've just received the latest - and last! - edition of the Phone Book through my door.

At the front is a potted history of UK telephone directories, starting in 1880 when 248 entries were listed, just for London.

In 1896 (a year before Blyton was born) the first national directory was published, with 81,000 entries.

I can't think of any specifics immediately, but can we list the occasions when directories were used in the stories? I'm sure they were referred to many times in FFO

Viv

[Bertie]

I definitely remember the one in Holly Lane, when Fatty went down it looking for 'King's' and stopped at one with stables as it would have Horse boxes.

There's also the 'Holland's' that they're looking for in Hidden House. I think they use the phone book for that.

[Bertie]

And in the very first book, when Fatty is too sore (after falling off the haystack) to go with the others, do he and Bets say they looked up Mr Smellie's address in the phone book?

[Fiona1986]

I'm not sure about in the stories, but didn't Blyton sometimes use the phonebook to select last names at random for her characters?

[Bertie]

And I think in Invisible Thief, they looked up 'Rod...' in the Telephone directory to try and see if any surnames could match that clue.

I'm struggling to think of any non-FFO examples. I did think they maybe used the telephone directory in FF when George gets kidnapped and they're looking for an American car - but I think they just went to the Garage and he phoned up people that he knew?

[Barnard]

Peter and Janet use a phone book in one of the Secret Seven stories. I think they were looking for names beginning with ‘Q’.

[Anita Bensoussane]

In Well Done Secret Seven, Jack and George go to the post office and ask the post office girl to look up Emma Lane in the directory.

Edit: Just remembered Secret Seven on the Trail. Having looked in the telephone directory at home for firms called Dalling or Hammond, with no result, Peter and Janet decide to try one of the big telephone directories at the post office because those directories cover a wider area. Jack goes with them.

[GloomyGraham]

Funny to think of the days when the public libraries had shelves and shelves of phone books.

[Hannah]

In Strange Messages they look for Smith in the telephone directory.

[Boodi 2]

Funny to think of the days when the public libraries had shelves and shelves of phone books.

I can vaguely remember that! I can also remember "reading" the phone book to see what funny or odd names I could find...I must have been experiencing a shortage of Blyton books at the time to drive me to such extreme reading matter!!!

[Boatbuilder]

Funny to think of the days when the public libraries had shelves and shelves of phone books.

I remember that the last company I worked for in Liverpool, before I transferred to Gloucestershire in the mid 70s had the phone directories of the entire country in the switchboard/reception area and it was surprising how much they were used.

I can vaguely remember that! I can also remember "reading" the phone book to see what funny or odd names I could find...I must have been experiencing a shortage of Blyton books at the time to drive me to such extreme reading matter!!!

You really must have been short of something to read at the time, Monique, although I can understand the amusement in it.

On my computer I have copies of the pages from the phone directories from the 1970s and 1980s on which my own phone numbers appear from my last address in Liverpool and the two addresses I had in Gloucestershire. I found them online on through one of the ancestry websites quite a few years ago although I don't recall which one it was.

[Fiona1986]

I’ve had people come into my library and ask if I have phone books. I’d show them the local BT one and the yellow pages. Often this was fine, they’d have a look at one. But I have a had a few askance looks followed by “you don’t have one for Manchester/Leeds/other English city hundreds of miles away?”
Once upon a time yes we would have, but not in the 2020s.

[Anita Bensoussane]

Peter and Janet use a phone book in one of the Secret Seven stories. I think they were looking for names beginning with ‘Q’.

Your mention of the letter Q rang a bell, Barnard, and got me flicking through a couple of books. The second one I tried was Good Work Secret Seven, which is probably the one you were thinking of. Pam and Barbara have to find out about Q8061 (or maybe Kew 8061). Janet tells Peter, "...Pam asked her mother how to find out if there was such a number, because she and Barbara really didn't feel they could wade through all the telephone directories. And her mother said, 'Well, just ring up and see if there's an answer!'" Janet adds that when Pam and Barbara rang the number, there was no reply and the operator said it was because there was currently no telephone with that number.

Curiously, a few chapters later Pam suggests (at a Secret Seven meeting) that they fetch a directory and look at all the names beginning with Q, because one of them might have the telephone number 8061.

Earlier in the same book, the Secret Seven use a telephone directory to look up the address and telephone number of Briggs, who lives in Renning.

[Barnard]

Yes. That was the book of which I was thinking, Anita

[dsr]

In Strange Messages they look for Smith in the telephone directory.

Did they find one?