46 Better Farming | August 2024 Follow us on @BetterFarmingON RURAL TELEPHONES HAVE CHANGED A LOT Like tractors, phone systems have become very sophisticated. By Ralph Winfield In my youth, the Elmira area had one of Canada’s most advanced telephone systems. Our farmhouse had a relatively small, wall-mounted, dial telephone with a speaker on the front and a removable receiver on the left side. It was black and made of wood. We could direct-dial many customers in the Elmira area. Our initial phone number was just three digits long: 368. Initially, there were no area codes for us to use. If you wanted to dial long distance, you needed to go through the local operator by dialling 0. By contrast, many rural phone customers had large, wall-mounted telephones, with a crank on one side and a receiver on the other. There was no dial. You would turn the crank the specific number of rotations you needed to talk to a neighbour. Most of those systems were privately owned and operated. Where I live now, the privately owned telephone system is based in Belmont. I remember my first person-to-person phone call to the Thomson household to speak with my new girlfriend. The operator, located in Belmont, actually knew that Joan was John M. Thomson’s daughter. With the large, wall-mounted telephones, the owner was only able to crank-dial a relatively small number of neighbours. By contrast, with our small wall-mounted telephone with a dial, we could dial many local neighbours. We only needed operator assistance when phoning out of the Elmira area. We did have to pay for all of those long-distance phone calls. As time passed, Bell Canada bought virtually all of the privately owned telephone companies and upgraded them to their system level. We were all given an upgraded telephone directory (book) every year so we could maximize the number of customers that we could dial directly. Many of you will remember the 8.5 x 11-inch phone books that were at least two inches thick – white pages for regular customers and yellow pages for businesses. My daughter just reminded me that we used them as boosters to lift our toddlers when they sat on chairs at the table. In recent years, most of us have not received an upgraded telephone directory on a regular (yearly) basis. It was just announced recently that there will not be a new telephone directory published and provided by Bell Canada. However, we have received a local phone directory. It provides phone numbers and advertisements for commercial businesses selling goods and services in the London area, including the Belmont 644 exchange. Equipment and system changes have occurred over time. Now everyone with a landline has a personal line. In days gone by, we often had a comHow it Works Columnist Ralph Winfield in a recent photo with his current home telephones. Karen Bancroft photo
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NTc0MDI3