Published In The Great North Arrow, April 2020: Landlines & Cell Service
- jim Young "Mr. Watson - come here - I want to see you." - Alexander Graham Bell I don’t remember my first telephone number but it was something like 3R2 (Three-ring-two). Dialing it consisted of holding a button on the left side of the phone while turning the crank on the right side. We could hear the phone ring for all our neighbours that were on our party line and would recognize our ring by the number and sequence of long and short rings. We could also answer the phone for everyone else on the party line or listen in on their conversations if we chose to but this was never an issue as it was a forbidden rule of etiquette that most everyone respected. Our phone company was the Stroud Telephone Company that operated from 1910 to 1964. Painswick, just 3 miles away, was serviced by Bell. When we moved to Painswick we were required to switch to Bell service which covered the Barrie area even though Painswick had not yet been annexed by Barrie. As my father was the Deputy Ch...
