I mentioned about a year ago that our local branch of Oddbins, a chain of wine and liquor stores, had closed. The shop has been vacant ever since, but a few days back some big posters appeared over the windows announcing the opening of a skin-care salon. (What that will entail I'm not sure, but I am sure that I will never go there.)
In the process of preparing the shopfront someone took down all the old Oddbins signs, and beneath them was this amazing "ghost" sign for some place called Bottlenecks.
I have tried to look online for information about Bottlenecks, to see how old that uncovered sign might be, but I can't find any record of it. Was it just a single shop? I'm guessing at some point it was purchased by Oddbins and absorbed into that larger chain.
Maybe this is a hint. I have never seen a British phone number written as seven digits. Usually they are eight digits with a three-digit area code in front, written like this: (xxx) xxxx xxxx. I'm not sure this is universally true across the country, but that's how it is in London.
And when's the last time you saw a phone that looked like that?
Side note: If you want to read something head-spinning, check out this Wikipedia article about the history of British phone numbers. I tried to glean some information that would date that sign, but I was quickly buried in an avalanche of minutiae. It was obviously written by someone who is obsessively interested in the mechanics of phone numbering.
I read enough to learn that there were two overhauls to the phone numbering system large enough to merit a public-relations campaign. There was PhONEday, in 1995, and there was the Big Number Change in 2000. Apparently that latter date is when certain parts of the country including London moved to eight-digit numbers.
If I had to guess, I'd say the sign goes back at least to the early '90s. It might even be significantly older. The typeface looks very '70s. Can any of my British readers shed some light on this?
We are having a breezy morning here, with the forecast calling for winds up to 35 mph. That's practically dead air compared to Northern Ireland and Scotland, which are expected to get gusts up to 100 mph. This is all part of Storm Éowyn, apparently. Before I went to bed last night I put all the patio plants on the ground to avoid a repeat of the Great Geranium Disaster of New Year's Day, and so far I've heard nothing crashing or smashing. Olga went out briefly when I first got up but she came back in as quickly as possible and returned to bed.
The font used for the Bottlenecks sign does indeed look very 1970s, or it could even be from the late 60s (it has a Yellow Submarine-ish feel about it, I think).
ReplyDeleteThings like that can intrigue me no end!
And while I do find the logic and administration behind something like phone numbers truly fascinating, I would not need all those minutiae, either - give me the most important facts, and I'm happy.
For my friends and family in Yorkshire, I can say that their landline numbers have a 5 digit area code, followed by a six digit number.
Yes! It does look like "Yellow Submarine." Does that five-digit area code include the country code (+44)? Five digits seems like a lot for an area code.
DeleteI'm old enough to remember answering the phone with " 289" and having a shared line with the only other property in the road with a phone!
ReplyDeleteNo idea when numbers changed but first two numbers went before the 289 so we were 40289 then two more before that and finally area code was 5 numbers and actual phone number became 6 numbers but that was pre 1992. London was different to rest of country - so I'm no help at all!
It's interesting how the numbers grew in size as the quantity of phones expanded, which makes sense. Apparently a house in a rural part of Scotland had a single-digit phone number right up into the '90s. (I read this on the Internet so it must be true. :) )
DeleteMorning Steve, I love this sort of conundrum. I was born in 1960 in Ealing and aged two years old moved to Twickenham. I remember our phone number being Pope’s Grove (after the poet Alexander Pope) 346. That number then became 0346 and by the time I was regularly using the phone in the early 1970s it was 894 0346. I remember these numbers because that was how I answered the phone and I was chief phone answerer and message taker in my house. The font looks very Biba-ish circa 1974. As schoolgirls we often caught the No. 33 bus from Twickenham to Kensington High Street to have a day out in Biba - so glamorous. During the 1980s London telephone numbers were split into inner London prefixed by 07 and outer London prefixed by 08. (I worked on Wine & Spirit magazine 1983-87 and had a pretty intimate knowledge of London wine merchants.) Around the millennium a further prefix of 02 was added to all London numbers creating the 11 digit number London residents and businesses still use today - if indeed the former still use a landline. Thus my old Twickenham number today would be 0208 894 0346. I now live in a semi-rural but thriving village on the northern edge of the South Downs and our landline here which I only use in extremis because it is so crackly despite having a BT telegraph pole right outside our house which Open Reach are forever shinning up and down is also 11 digits but as everyone in the village has the same first eight digits to their telephone number you only have to remember the last three digits when phoning anyone in the village. Finally I did an MBA at Kingston university 1990 - 1993 and many of my fellow students worked for the newly privatised British Telecom and they were trying to make savvy marketing and financial people out of nerdy telecommunications engineers. Did they succeed? Please note all my evidence is only anecdotal and I haven’t checked any of my remembered dates with other sources. I will now follow your Wikipedia link and see if it tallies with my remembrances. Have a good day Steve, I do enjoy reading your blog very much and I especially enjoy the gardening and wildlife days and your Thameside walks as the river Thames runs through me. Sarah in Sussex
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting that you remember exchanges with names rather than numbers. Those were gone by the time I was learning to use the phone in the early '70s. I had to look up Biba -- that's a part of London history I'd never heard about. Sounds like a fab place! If you don't know Bottlenecks despite working on Wine & Spirit magazine it must not have been a very big retailer. Thanks for commenting and I'm glad you like the blog. :)
DeleteOld signs are interesting and old telephone numbers equally so. I still remember my parents' first telephone number in Kent - 78050. When we first moved to Berkshire, our telephone number was just four digits, then it increased to five, then six and at some point the STD code was introduced. Now, in common with much of the rest of the country, excluding London, which has its own code of conduct, landlines have eleven digits. We gave up our landline some while ago.
ReplyDeleteFunny how the numbers and addresses we learn when we're kids stay with us for life. I still remember our first address (which changed over the years even though we stayed in the same house) and the number to call to get the time. That was the number my parents used to let me call so I could learn how to use the phone. (It was automated so I wasn't bothering an actual person!)
DeleteLondon's area codes were unique: they went
Delete01-xxx-xxxx
071-xxx-xxxx (inner London) and 081-xxx-xxxx (outer London)
0171 and 0181 xxx-xxxx
Then
020 with the 7 and 8 moving to be part of the phone number itself, no distinction between geographic location, with 3 also being added as a "prefix" of sorts as the numbers ran out
029 3xxx-xxxx / 7xxx-xxxx / 8xxx-xxxx
The lack of area codes means it was from, at most, before April 2000, most likely from before Phone day.
Thank you for all that great info, Michael! I'm glad to know I wasn't far off thinking it was probably a '90s sign. (If not older.)
DeleteI was thinking the lettering looked very ‘70s, as well.
ReplyDeleteOr even late '60s. As Meike said above, it's very "Yellow Submarine."
DeleteIn my genealogy research, there is a massive black hole of missing information from pre-internet until when newspapers are considered old enough to preserve online, say from the 1950's to the 1990's. I find it very hard to bridge that gap in tracking down modern day descendants of someone.
ReplyDeleteSo in other words, there's a sort of middle-period of missing information, from the '60s to the web era? That's interesting. And that would include Bottlenecks!
DeleteOur home phone number in the fifties was 44444. That's it. And my fiance's mother in the early sixties, in the Cheshire village of Hooton, was Hooton 2! She sounded like an owl, since brits used to answer the phone by announcing the number.
ReplyDeleteLOL -- that's a great way to answer the phone. "Hooton 2" remind me of "Sutton Hoo."
DeleteI have no thoughts at all on the mysterious sign except that the font reminds me of certain types of the signs made in the eighties for places that were trying to be "Olde Timey".
ReplyDeleteHowever, you have triggered the memory of telephone operators. Can you believe that to get a long-distance call through we had to call the operator? Probably no one even knows what "long distance" would mean these days in regard to phone calls.
AND THEY COST MONEY!!! Remember that?
DeleteBy the time I was making long-distance calls (which I obviously didn't do until I was an adult) I could direct dial. I don't remember calling an operator for anything, except to get directory information if I needed help finding a number. I DO remember that long-distance calls were expensive. In fact when I first moved to Winter Haven from Tampa I had to be careful about calling my family because it cost money!
DeleteThat lettering is very groovy - I would expect the wine labels to all be tie-dye. Ha!
ReplyDeleteHa! THAT would be an awesome look.
DeleteBuildings that have been vacant for many years require a ton of work and investment to make them fit for new purposes. Hopefully the new skin care business will be successful. It will be fascinating to see the building transform.
ReplyDeleteUS phone numbers have evolved too. Our area codes (the first 3 digits) got reshuffled in the 90's. Each state had their own area code. Later cities and towns within each state were assigned area codes. No explanation was provided but the same system is used today.
I do remember that area code reshuffle. When I was a kid in Florida the whole state had only three area codes. Hard to believe now, when there are many more.
DeleteRight as I was reading your post, the news on TV mentioned that NYC is getting a new area code, the fifth I believe. So meta! That sign does look kind of late 60s to me. Intriguing!
ReplyDeleteFunny! I remember when NYC added a second area code and no one wanted it. Everyone wanted a 212 number. In fact, I think there was a "Seinfeld" episode about it. I remember being happy when I moved to Manhattan in 2000 that I got a 212 number!
DeleteOlga set the tone. It's a day not fit for dogs.
ReplyDeleteI love the sign. I'd venture that it goes back to the 70's. I'll check out that phone numbering article. It sounds as complex as the whole changing of the currency every few years.
It does look very '70s! I wouldn't spend a lot of time on that phone number article. Your head will explode. LOL
DeleteI remember as a kid that our home phone was MAyfair 7 6012 which was dialed as MA76012 and later became 6276012. We knew all of our friends' and family's phone numbers by heart back then. I don't know anyone's number by memory anymore as my cell phone remembers for me which isn't good when the phone isn't working.
ReplyDeleteI did think "Bottlenecks" could be the name of the skincare place if they focused on wrinkles of the neck. ;)
Ha! Maybe they'll save the old sign! :)
DeleteI remember hearing references to those old named exchanges on TV shows but by the time I was using the phone everything was numerical. I do remember learning others' telephone numbers. It was probably good for our brains!
My brother (who is a weather freak) sent me a tweet from Met Éireann showing the expected winds from the storm. Severe-Weather.EU was calling it a "sting jet". I think that's similar to what they call a "bomb cyclone" over here.
ReplyDeleteInteresting! I didn't hear the "sting jet" term!
DeleteI'm more amused by the Bottlenecks sign above the skin care posters.
ReplyDeleteHa!!! Great minds...
DeleteI didn't even think of that connection!
DeleteI love that "Bottlenecks" font. Immediately it took me back to the end of the sixties. By the way, I think you would benefit from expert skin care - perhaps a regular facial mudpack with slices of cucumber over your eyes - followed by an orange spray tan to look like The Great Pretender.
ReplyDeleteI had a facial once, given to me as a gift by a friend, and I found it a very unpleasant and not particularly effective experience.
DeleteLast Time I Saw A Phone Number Like That Was In My 1980's High School Yearbook
ReplyDeleteStay In Touch And/Or Have A Rad Summer ,
Cheers
Ha! Yeah, we had seven-digit numbers like that when I was growing up, too.
DeleteHi Steve, this is my first comment on your blog, although I read it often. It’s always fascinating to find glimpses of the past such as that old Bottlenecks sign. I worked for a Courtaulds company in Derby during the 1970’s/80’s and our design studio was based in London. From elsewhere in the country (I think from 1958 until the 90’s, as Wikipedia states) London was 01 - followed by 3 numbers and then 4 numbers, as you see it on the Bottlenecks sign. I knew all the main city std codes off by heart (Manchester 061, Liverpool 051 etc) but relied on a little booklet produced by the GPO if I wanted to call smaller towns and villages). Our design rooms were in Paddington and dialling from outside London was 01 402-7211. I last dialled it circa 1982 but have an unexplained recall of phone numbers and car number plates - very odd because I’m not very numerate in general! I’m guessing the first three numbers of the Bottlenecks store were the area in London where the shop was located. The shop name doesn’t sound familiar but a lot of wine bars and liquor stores were starting to be established in that era. Given the name ‘Bottlenecks’, there may be a link. I hope a long time local resident stops by and solves the mystery!
ReplyDeleteHi Petra -- welcome to the blog, and thanks for relating your telephonic memories! I'm impressed that you still remember the number for your Paddington offices. In the states, there was a period in the late '70s and early '80s when wine was becoming more commonly consumed, rather than being something you'd have only with a fancy dinner. I understand why more wine shops and bars appeared during that time.
DeleteHi Steve, I had to add that I only just noticed the ‘Wine and Spirit Merchants’ header on the Bottlenecks sign, after popping in my theory above that it could be a wine shop!!
ReplyDeleteHa!
DeleteThe font does look '70s but I don't know enough about British phone numbers. I don't even remember when we started needing to use the 3 digit area code to dial. I do remember that my home number was Thornwall 4 and is now 845, and my uncle's near Seattle was Cherry 2. For some reason I remember the names way better than the numbers!
ReplyDeleteI suppose that's why people used named exchanges in the beginning -- they were easy to remember. I do remember when we didn't have to dial the area code if we were calling within the same area code -- but nowadays you always have to use an area code, I think?
DeleteWhen I lived in London in the 1980s, the phone numbers were seven digits plus 01 in front when calling from outside London, so 01- xxx-xxxx. That seems so very low ng ago now!
ReplyDeleteOK! So that would be consistent with this sign. That helps with the date!
DeleteBottleneck store front has that urbex look to it
ReplyDeleteOh, I gave it a good try. I looked up the Oddbins address and then tried to type in Bottlenecks, using that address...nothing!
ReplyDeleteYeah, I tried and tried -- and I fancy myself a pretty good Googler -- but I couldn't come up with anything.
DeleteMy valuable comment has gone awaaaaay
ReplyDeleteHmmm. Not to go all Charles Paget Wade on you, but it wasn't all that long ago that I donated a phone that looked like that to the local theatre. Rick still has his wall phone (I think it's buttons, though). It's not in operation but even now the kids want to play with it. I like the name Bottlenecks. It would be a great name for a brew pub.
ReplyDelete