Following on from my classic phone box post, it will probably come as no surprise that I also love classic GPO 746 telephones.
Growing up, we had two original 746s in the house, a black one that came with the place when my parents bought it in 1982 and an ivory one that I think one of them might have brought from a previous flat. The ivory one died a death sometime in the ’00s, but the black one still sits on the hall table, waiting patiently for me to adopt it eventually. I think even in the ’90s, we were a bit behind the times – whenever I had friends from school round and they needed to use the phone, none of them knew how to use the rotary dial. I’m guessing most people in the UK had switched to push button models by the late ’80s.
I bought a replica 746 (shown above) from GPO Retro a year or two ago. I love the way it looks, though the feel isn’t 100% right – there’s not quite as much spring tension on the rotary dial as there is on an original model, presumably to aid quicker dialling when dealing with automated answer systems such as telephone banking, and of course it beeps in your ear during dialling as well, unlike the originals. Still, I’m very happy with it, and when we get round to extending the phone line upstairs in the new house, I’ll probably get one in another colour.
