Wight Portal For The Isle of Wight Community

It was 1981, I was 13 years old. Having just arrived home from school and hanging up my coat in the hall, I noticed a big white thing with a dial sitting on the shelf. Wow we're on the phone!

Dad had decided to get one installed before summer, so if like the previous year my bike should breakdown, miles from home, I wouldn't have to struggle to find :

1.  A phone box with a phone book in tact
2.  A neighbour who was in who could pop round with my SOS message.

It was to be another 2 years before he invested in a colour TV, but that's another story for another time.

For the first 4 years of my life we lived in a sweetshop in Pyle Street, Newport. My Father bought it back in the late 50's early 60's and employed a couple of staff to run it while he went to work, he was the machine setter at J. Arthur Dixons the greeting card firm, who were along Forest Road, later to become the maintenance foreman next door at Ronson the lighter manufacturer.

The shop was only a small concern and ticked over, not producing enough profit for Dad to quit the day job. In all the time he had that business he never had a phone connected. Back in those days you bought stock from visiting sales reps or as Dad did, go to the Cash and Carry, which at the time was situated on part of what's now Sainsbury.

How times have changed, now the land line has more or less become obsolete for telephone calling and been replaced by the mobile.

Back in '95, because where we were renting didn't have a land line connection and BT were going to charge the earth to install one and the landlord wouldn't cough up, I bought one of the early analogue mobile phones. It was only a fiver as long as you signed up for a years contract with BT, £12 a month plus calls.
The phone was the same length as a VHS video case and about half the width of one as well.

Not only was it big and cumbersome, but cost an absolute fortune 30p a minute calls plus the £12 a month became a bit much. Soon after circumstances meant we had to move and the new place had a land line and so the so called mobile got put back in it's box and forgotten about.

Fast forward to my next mobile experience. It was 2003-2005, I was doing security at a holiday camp in Sandown. The site manager gave me a Nokia brick with £5 credit on it for emergencies. The credit  lasted the two seasons I did the job. In fact because the credit never got used Virgin took it away and the phone that hasn't been used since is collecting dust somewhere.

This whole fad that has turned into a way of life for teenagers to pensioners the world over has passed me by. I honestly don't understand what the fuss is. Whole lives have been ruined because of a stolen or lost phone that had the persons whole reason for existing stored on it. Is that not a sad way of living?

What in society has changed so drastically in recent years that we need to be able to be contacted 24 hours a day?

There is only one occasion when I feel guilty for not using one of these contraptions and that's when I'm in the local Post Office. Like all other sub offices, the poor woman who runs it is struggling to keep going. Basically it's got to the stage if sales targets aren't met, then you'll be closed down. Anyway I'm in there buying my stamps or whatever and she always asks if I need to top up my phone. After explaining that I don't have one she always gives me a disbelieving look.
So here's my suggestion. Everyone who owns a mobile phone on a pay as you go contract, always top up at your local Post Office, that way they can stay in business.