How Times Have Changed: Keeping in Touch For Ex-Pats

For those of us who live abroad, when it comes to keeping in touch with family and friends, there's never been a better time to live in another country than right here in the twenty first century. Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, Skype, Instagram, WhatsApp... every day, it seems, there's a new app we have to download or a new site we have to use which all the cool kids are using to keep in touch with their mates. Word! And if you really want to go back to being fairly old school, there's always email and texting!

But way, way, back in the day, even before we had what we thought was the greatest invention since the wheel - good ol' electronic mail - there were other methods of communicating with our not so nearest but still very much dearest, which at the time were essential for keeping in touch. The problem was that they were either costly or time consuming, which meant that people very rarely kept in touch with anyone who wasn't family or a close friend. Now we can keep in touch with Colonel Mustard; Mr. Bun the baker, and the lady who still gets the bus at the same time we once did if we want to, and it's all thanks to the huge variety of new modes of communication.

We take a look at some of the old-school methods of staying in touch, even though there's not really much chance of us ever using them again... Well not unless nostalgia gets the better of us!

1. LETTER WRITING

Sometimes, the urge to act like it's 1975 and write a letter takes over. But for most of us, there's a desire to do so but it doesn't usually happen. Even if we had one of those gorgeous writing bureaus, and a set of plush stationary, we still probably wouldn't have the patience to sit there and write the letter; hunt out the stamps; walk to the post box - or worse, queue up at the post office - post the letter than wait for the reply. I guess twenty first century comforts are hard to do without!

But back in the day, letter writing was something we all had to do at one time or another in order to keep in touch with those who lived abroad, and some of us were avid writers who would make the time to write regularly. And there was always a fantastic array of fancy stationary available at Woolies or WHSmith. And let's not forget that some of us loved letter-writing so much that we used to write to people we didn't even know - how many of us had penfriends around the world? If you did, you'd still remember that rush of excitement as a letter arrived in the post.

But then along came email and there was no longer any need for good-quality letter writing stationary in hues of blush pink or taupe that came in fancy packaging bound with a ribbon! And of course with postage costs spiralling out of control and people becoming environmentally conscious, it makes sense that electronic mail should replace the traditional pen and paper method but its still a shame that letter writing has become something of a lost art.

2. TELEGRAMS

To many young 'uns today, 'Telegram' is an online messaging app - and yet another mode of communication! But for us oldies, a telegram was a written message transmitted by an electric device which was then printed and delivered by hand. Many of us will have memories of that distinctive yellow envelope with the word 'Telegram'on it. The telegram often heralded some kind of important news - either good or bad that needed to be reported immediately. Some of us may remember that it used to be delivered by motorbike courier - sometimes very late at night. But by the late eighties, it wasn't unusual for it to be delivered by your local neighbourhood postie!

3. AIRMAIL

If you had family and friends who lived abroad, you'd be sure to stock up on airmails so that you could write to them regularly. And in return, you would often find that familiar blue envelope being popped through your letter box when they wrote back.

4. LANDLINE

In the days before people were glued to their mobile phones, most people had a landline phone at home. We say most people because believe it or not, there were some people -especially before the nineties - who didn't have a phone. "Are you on the phone?" was a very common question back then as it wasn't just assumed that everyone had a telephone, and it was a way of finding out whether someone had a phone at home before you asked for their number. Today "are you on the phone?" would mean "are you still yapping away on the phone as you've done for the last three hours instead of working?" Nobody would even think to ask if you owned a phone because in the twenty first century, who doesn't?

So yes, we were quite impressed when someone owned a landline. We were even more impressed when it was a push button phone instead of a rotary. If they had an extension in one of the upstairs bedrooms we were like, 'woah!' If they had another line, we'd think they were someone rather grand and curtsey to them. If they had a cordless phone, we'd think they were related to the Ewings. If they had a car phone, we thought they were the Ewings!

But today if we spot a landline in someone's living room, its a case of  'Oh my goodness! You still have one of those'? How times have changed!

5. FAX

An early form of email! Fax machines were usually considered office equipment but some people did have them at home for personal rather than work use. The details on letter headed business paper usually contained a fax number - something you don't really see much of today.

During the early part of this century, fax - or facsimile - machines and the fax rolls were readily available, and continued to sell fairly well until just before the noughties ended. It's hard to find people who still use fax machines today as with the introduction of scanners - which are far more economical to use - facsimile machines are slowly finding their way to the great technological scrapheap in the sky.

6. PHONING ABROAD

There's never been a better time to speak to our loved ones abroad as today we have so many apps that enable us to speak either for free or at an extremely cheap rate. Or maybe you still prefer using phone cards where you can call abroad for just a few pence a minute. Hang on - do those even exist anymore???

Back in the eighties, if we wanted to call family abroad, we'd have to dial the operator first, get charged something ridiculous per minute which meant that a ten minute phone call could result in remortgaging the house. When you finally got through, the quality of the call was often so bad you didn't know who had answered the phone let alone what they were saying.

Thank goodness technology has improved enough for us to enjoy long distance calls as we do now. When you think about people who had moved to another country during the last century, already feeling alone and separated by thousands of miles, who didn't have the convenient and cost effective methods of communication that we do today, making keeping in touch so much harder - it makes you feel for them and you realize just how lucky you are.

7. ANSWER MACHINES

If you phone someone today and they don't answer, there's a zillion ways you can leave a message for them to get back to you. But back in the day, there really was only one way you could ask someone to call you back and that was to leave a message on their answer machine. Remember those dinky little cassette tapes that you would have to insert into the machine? Recording the answerphone greeting that people would hear before leaving a message was always a lot of fun! But we also had to be mindful not to leave the kind of greeting that would make a burglar's day: "Hi. We're off to the Algarve for a fortnight. Please leave a message and we'll call you when we get back." Yeah only if the buglar hasn't nicked your phone and answer machine, mate!

8. POSTCARDS

Postcard were usually bought and posted by holiday makers rather than people who actually live abroad. We all remember the usual  brief lines to be found on the back of a postcard :

"Arrived on Sunday. Weather great. Hotel good. Now relaxing by the pool with a cocktail. Wish you were here."

But it seems as though people no longer send postcards any more. But then social media seems to have replaced the need for postcards. And furthermore, postcards usually reach the recipients long after the sender has returned home!

9: BT PHONECARDS

Mobile phones were starting to gain in popularity during the nineties. But whereas today it's unusual to see ten year olds without a mobile, there were still lots of teenagers back then who didn't own a mobile phone. Hard to believe isn't it? So if we wanted to be 'mobile' with our phone calls i.e. - talk to our mates away from the prying ears of mum and dad, then phone boxes were the way to go. This meant spending part of our pocket money on those green BT phone cards that we could use in those phone boxes that would only accept phone cards. For many of us, those cards were a godsend and screamed 'freedom' the same way that a pass from a driving examiner does to a newly qualified driver.

Though of course mobile phones today mean that phone boxes are very rarely used. And if those BT phone cards still exist, who buys them?

10. PAGERS

Pagers were usually used by doctors on call and other professionals. But we often knew at least one person who'd use a pager for personal reasons. Although if you had one for personal reasons, you were often considered a 'poser' - a lot like people who had mobile phones before those really took off! Once mobile phones became popular along with texting, paging people wasn't necessary anymore, although of course pagers are still used by emergency responders as they aren't subject to network issues or similar disruptions. Which is bad news for the phone operators who no longer have a good laugh at the cheeky messages we used to leave for our friends.

What are your memories of these old-school forms of communication?

Photos from Pixabay

Word cloud by Angel Noire