Looking Back: We were advised to take a telephone directory to parties with us in the 1950s!

She worked in cabaret and as a stunt person but can be remembered for her strong woman act on television where she bent iron bars with her teeth and tore telephone directories in half. Blonde and shapely, she was described as a Marilyn Monroe lookalike but not to be messed with!

Not something we would see today, but of course telephone directories are a thing of the past anyway!

Almost without realising it we don’t get them delivered to our homes anymore. And there was always a copy in the red phone boxes which seemed to be at the end of every road. And usually not ever vandalized at that!

The first telephone directory appeared in America in 1878 with just 50 names in, followed by the UK in 1880 with 248 names.

We could also acquire Thomson Local and Yellow Pages which gave details of any business or trade. They were very useful when you needed a job doing! A popular television advert in 1964 was ‘Let your fingers do the walking’ which advertised Yellow Pages.

Possibly one of the most popular television adverts ever was also for Yellow Pages, It featured a fictitious elderly gentleman trying to find a book called ‘Fly Fishing’ by JR Hartley and helped by the directory. In 2015 a poll conducted to find the most popular television adverts ever placed it in 5th place.

Also remembered was Maureen Lipman as Beattie, who advertised BT and coined the phrase ‘Ology!’ when her grandson Anthony failed his exams apart from Sociology. ‘You’ve got an Ology?’

Alas, the Yellow Pages was discontinued in 2019, Thomsons in 2016 and telephone directories in 2024.

Technology has replaced the handy telephone directories and everything is now digital, which doesn’t seem nearly as easy to use.

When I was at secondary school we were advised that telephone directories were a handy thing to take to parties to place on the knee of any young man before we sat down not wanting to inflame any passion. That was a very long time ago however!