W HEN Alexander Graham Bell opened his first telephone exchange in Connecticut he couldn't possibly have envisaged the iniquitous mobile phone.

The first greeting was "Ahoy" but Bell, deciding that was a bit perfunctory, changed it to "Hello" – the way most people answer the

phone today.

When I was a child, however, not only did we not have a phone but we didn't know any one who did.

When we moved to Knowle West there was a red GPO box standing in Melvin Square.

I had seen my dad use the phone from time to time but the first time I used one was to gain one of my Brownie badges – I had to make a call to prove that I was capable.

Lifting the black receiver and putting my coppers in if there was an answer, I pressed either button "A" to speak or "B" to get my money back.

I would never have imagined then that almost every one today would have a phone.

That telephone box was to become quite an important part of my life, especially when I met my first husband and we began courting

Courting, as we called it, was very different from today. It was six weeks before I received a first shy kiss on my cheek.

When my boyfriend was called up to do his National Service he was sent, like many others, to do his basic training in Aldershot. With no leave for the first six weeks, not only did he feel lonely without all the comforts of home but we missed each other so much.

Then he suggested I go to the phone box in Melvin Square at an arranged time and he would ring me. Of course this didn't always work out – sometimes there would be someone already in the box and I would have to wait until they had finished.

Luckily, there were shop doorways I could shelter in – there were no shuttered shops in those days.

If he arranged to call me about 9.30 on a winter evening, the only advice I would get from mum would be to wrap up warm or take a brolly. It was quite safe on the street in those days

At the Aldershot end, my boyfriend had even more difficulty with lots of other lonely squaddies wanting to use the phone box.

In fact it was in that very phone box, aged 16, that I received his proposal of marriage. Naturally I said "yes" and danced all the way home.

I couldn't let my excitement show, however, as he first had to ask my dad's permission to get engaged, which he did before he was posted abroad to Austria.

As the airmail letters began to arrive, my first question when I got home at night was, "Any letters, Mum?"

He wrote lovely romantic letters and my mum gave me an old shoe box to keep them in. Since nylon stockings were impossible to get in the UK, he often used to send me a pair, putting one stocking at a time in his letters.

There were no tights then ladies – it was all suspender belts.

My mum told me that when she was young, a letter or postcard posted about 9am would be delivered by 2pm that same day. Imagine that!

Hardly anybody having phones made quite an anxious time for my girlfriends.

If a boy took them home after a date and didn't make another one then they had to assume they had been "dumped", as they say today.

Now all the young folk – and some older ones too – seem to either always have a mobile attached to their ear or are constantly texting.

I have often sat on many a bus (using my free pass) and listened to girls (mostly) sharing quite intimate conversations with their friends, and, of course, all the other passengers.

Do I have a mobile?

Yes.

My daughter bought me one about six years ago and my grandsons patiently taught me to text.

Last Christmas I was given a new one – it even takes pictures – but I still treasure my old one since it contains many loving texts from my daughter, Julie, who died in 2006.