Did You Know… People In The UK Used to Phone the Speaking Clock (and some still do)?

So yes, did you know people really did phone the Speaking Clock — thousands of calls a day — just to set the time? Another wonderfully peculiar detail of everyday British life from a world that didn’t yet run on digital certainty.

 

There are some bits of everyday life from the 1960s and 70s that younger generations struggle to believe. Like how we would phone a number just to find out the exact time. And we would pay to do so as well. But for decades, the Speaking Clock was as essential to British households as the kettle, the teasmade, and the bedside alarm clock.

Phoning the Speaking Clock became a regular part of our lives.

Before smartphones, digital displays, checking the internet, or shouting out to Siri or Alexa, “Hey, what time is it?”, the Speaking Clock was the most reliable way to find out the correct time.

And people used it. A lot. At its peak, it received tens of thousands of calls a day. It even had a human name — of sorts. If you dialled TIM (or later, 123), you were immediately greeted by an unmistakably British voice.

Imagine the scene — I need to know the time.

“Mam, what’s the time? The clock has stopped.” I would shout out.

“I haven’t got my watch on; give TIM a call.”

Of course, you would need to have a landline phone at home, and ours didn’t arrive until the mid-1970s. But when it did, it was a novelty to call the Speaking Clock.

“At the third stroke, the time will be…” TIM spoke, followed by three neat pips.

It was simple, functional, and, in its own way, a tiny bit magical.

Did You Know… Until 1987, You Needed a Licence to Own a Dog in The UK?

 

 

So yes, did you know that until 1987, you needed a licence to own a dog — and it cost 7 shillings? Another small detail from a time when the family dog trotted happily beside you, blissfully unaware it was the subject of official government documentation.

 

There are certain quirks of everyday British life that quietly disappear and later resurface in memory with a mix of amusement and mild disbelief. 

One of these is the dog licence. 

There was a time when, if you had a dog, you would need that small piece of paper to prove you were the owner. It was legally required to have one until 1987, and for decades, they cost the princely sum of 7 shillings (35 new pence). 

'Princely' was the right word, though, as my first family dog went by the name of Prince. Despite his royal name, he was a mongrel dog, a happy one, but also an illegal one. I don’t remember us ever having a licence for him, but there again, I was quite young at the time. Such legal matters were not on my mind, and I don’t think it bothered Prince either, as he just went about his business of being a dog. 

In the 1960s or 70s, you might occasionally hear someone say, “Have you got a licence for that dog?” It wasn’t said as a joke but as an entirely sensible question. Although I think the police probably had better and more important things to do with their time.

Like today, back then, dogs were everywhere. We British do like our pet dogs. They become part of the family and like to be treated as such. They don’t ask for much, just to be fed, taken for lots of walks, and shown a little love. In return, they give loyalty. 

When I was very young, my mother would take Prince with us on the morning walk to school. Then, mid-afternoon when I was picked up, after a hard day of ignoring the teachers, there he would be, waiting at the school gate, ready for his next walk. Like all dogs, Prince liked his walks, whether it was to the school, local shop or pub. The pub was where he would snooze under the table, waiting for food scraps to come his way. After a long walk, he was hungry. 

Wherever we took him, I don’t think anyone ever asked us if we had a dog licence. He was never barred from anywhere.

But for the law-abiding, owning a dog meant a trip to the post office to do your duty and buy the licence. It was a simple enough process — you filled in a form, handed over your 7 shillings, and left with your official piece of bureaucracy. 

The dog would not have had to pass any test, no inspection, no check of the owner's ability to control a dog that had ideas above its station. You were not asked any questions about its background or where it came from.

It was, in truth, an exercise in mild government administration. One that had been around for a long time, and no one seemed to question. It was taken seriously enough to make the responsible dog owner feel properly legitimate.

A little like having a radio licence, and a TV licence, and a fishing licence, and…

Did You Know… Flared Trousers Were Once So Wide They Got Caught in Your Bike Chain?

 

So yes, did you know that flared trousers were once so wide they regularly got caught in people’s bike chains? It’s one of those silly things that captures the spirit of 1970s Britain — a time when trousers danced in the wind, and every young cyclist pedalled with a hint of danger.

 

Fashion trends come and go, and then there are some that arrive and take over the entire country. They leave future generations wondering if everyone had collectively lost their minds.

What were we thinking?

Back in the 1960s and 1970s, there was the great flared trousers explosion. If you lived through that era, you’ll remember trousers that weren’t just flared; they were enormous. Trousers so wide at the ankles that simply riding a bicycle became a public safety hazard.

Flares, or, if you were American, bell-bottoms, started off as quite modest things. A gentle widening at the trouser hem, influenced by naval uniforms of the past.

The fashion actually went back a couple of hundred years in history, but then 1960s pop culture caught on. The hippie movement adopted them. Jimi Hendrix, the Beatles, and Cher often wore them. They were not the only ones, as flares became not just a fashion statement but a symbol of self-expression and rebellion.

Like many innocent ideas, they escalated. By the mid-1970s, it seemed the national objective was to create trousers so wide at the ankles that they could double as a tent. As teenagers, we strutted down every street and road in trousers that resisted the slightest breeze. On really windy days, you could get blown away. If the weather forecast was for gale-force winds, it was better to stay indoors.

The width varied from person to person, but there was a competition for the widest.

“Mine are 22-inch bottoms,” someone would boast.

“Oh yeah?” Another would say, “Mine are 26.”

Before long, hems had reached levels that you could make a pair of curtains out of them. Some flares were so big they would cover your shoes, creating a strange gliding illusion, as if you were floating along.

But we wanted them — everyone wore flares — even our parents wore them in the seventies.

Did You Know… Central Heating Wasn't Common in British Homes Until the Late 1970s?

 

So yes, did you know that for most UK households, central heating didn’t become the norm until the late 1970s? Many of us grew up in cold bedrooms and homes where keeping warm in winter was a yearly challenge.

This morning was cold. I looked out of the window and noticed that every roof was covered in ice. Cars and the pavements were iced over as well. And, officially, winter hasn’t begun yet.

At least today, we have central heating to keep out the cold.

If you grew up in a British home before the late 1970s, you’ll know that heating the house — the whole house — was being optimistic. Heating a room, usually a single room, was a more accurate description of family life.

The idea that every room could be warmed at the turn of a thermostat belonged firmly to the future. If you were well-off, or posh, maybe you could afford it, but there was no one like that in my neighbourhood. Futuristic TV adverts and the pages of the Ideal Home magazine promised a better future, but for most of us, central heating was an exotic luxury, like a colour TV or crisps in flavours other than ready salted.

The typical UK home of the 60s and 70s was built around the living room fire. It was king. King Coal, in fact. That single fire was expected to heat the entire family and, if you were lucky, most of the downstairs. Bedrooms? Bathrooms (if you had one)? The landing? Those were places you dashed through at speed, wrapped in a dressing gown, determined to complete your journey before frostbite set in.

Condensation wasn’t a minor annoyance — it ran down single-glazed windows like a miniature waterfall, creating small black mould that everyone pretended not to notice. This was long before the days of double glazing, and insulation in houses was, well, what was insulation? In winter, ice on the inside of windows wasn’t unusual. Your bedroom felt less like a domestic space and more like a poorly insulated Arctic outpost.

An icebox.

Christmas Comes But Once a Year — But Does It Have to Start in November? Or Even Earlier?

I nipped into my local ASDA yesterday and was greeted — actually, I was ambushed — by their Grinch-inspired Christmas extravaganza plastered across the entrance. And apparently I’m already behind the times: the whole thing kicked off on the first of November. 

In true modern fashion, there’s even a YouTube video to usher us into the season of goodwill and maximum spending.

Here it is:

It’s all very commercial, of course. But then, that’s what Christmas has become — a festive excuse to flog as much stuff as possible. Step past the cheery Grinch, and you’re immediately confronted by neat piles of chocolates in “tins.” 

Except they’re not tins any more, are they? They’re round plastic containers, half the size of the tins from my youth. At least, it feels that way. I remember those big tins; you could make your own drum set out of them, and we did.

A fine example of shrinkflation wrapped in festive plastic.

And let’s be honest: anything bought in early November labelled “Christmas chocolates” will never survive until Christmas. I can already hear the household negotiations:

“Mum, can I have a chocolate? Just one.”

The child eyes up the container like a pirate sizing up treasure.

“No.”

“Why not? I only want one!”

“Because they’re for Christmas, that’s why.”

Of course, one eventually gets eaten, then another… Then everyone joins in, and the plastic tub is empty by the weekend. The shop makes another sale, the cycle repeats, and Christmas creeps ever earlier.

I suppose this makes me a bit of a Grinch myself. I refuse to get involved so early — it’s simply too soon. And besides, I haven’t yet heard Noddy Holder yelling “It’s Christmassssss…!” across a supermarket PA system. Until that happens, it’s definitely not Christmas.

Becoming AI — What's a Writer To Do?

I never used to check my writing with an AI detector before joining Medium. And even when I first published on the platform, I didn’t check.

But then I read a few stories from writers who indicated their writing, or some of it, had been flagged as AI by an AI detector checker. I thought that I had better check my stories just to see.

For the most part, they pass with a big zero.

But occasionally, I receive a return that tells me that anywhere from 3% to 10% is most likely AI. My usual reaction is, “Really?” Often, it is only one line, one sentence, or at most a paragraph. Occasionally, it may consist of just a few words.

I ask myself why would the detector think that an occasional line in a story of several hundred words, or even a few thousand, is most likely AI-written? What is it about the words that makes the detector algorithm think that it has been written by AI? And typically it will say, 100% certain.

For example, the line below.

Of the two, I prefer the astronomical summer because it lasts longer!

It was part of a story I wrote about the two end dates of summer in the UK, meteorological and astronomical. I wrote it for the reason given; the end date of the astronomical summer is later than the other date.

It was a simple enough sentence. Anyone could have written it. But the detector thought that AI wrote that line. It didn’t make sense to me. Was it because I had used a fancy word like ‘astronomical’? Or maybe it was the exclamation mark at the end? Perhaps AI did not think that a human would write that way, to emphasise being happy?

What’s in a Name? Forgotten British Names of the Past

 

Ever wonder what happened to names like Hilda, Norman, or Enid? This nostalgic look back explores the once-popular British names that defined generations — and quietly disappeared from everyday life.

 

What's In a Name?

My name is Martin. I’ve no idea who chose it for me — Mam? Dad? A coin toss? I never asked. Apparently, it was a popular name in the early 1960s, so perhaps they simply went with fashion. Not that “fashionable” is the word you’d associate with “Martin” these days. Dependable, perhaps. I might have picked something else.

Names, like hemlines and pop bands, go in and out of fashion. Some have their moment in the sun, then quietly slip away, only to be revived decades later by a new generation of parents who think they’re wonderfully vintage.

Others never quite make a comeback. They seem to be too firmly anchored to another time, another place, another era entirely.

Take a look at the top baby names in the UK in 2024, and it’s a different world altogether.

For boys, the top five last year were Muhammad, Noah, Oliver, Arthur, and Leo.

For girls — Olivia, Amelia, Lily, Isla, and Ivy.

Arthur surprised me, though. A name from the past. I came across quite a few Arthur's in the 1960s and 70s. Not just the historical ones, like King Arthur. There was Arthur Lowe of Dad’s Army fame and Arthur Askey and his ghost train. In tennis, Arthur Ashe won Wimbledon in 1975.

Arthur was the number one boys’ name in Wales in 2024. Not bad for a bloke who once pulled a sword from a stone. Arthur, it seems, never truly goes out of style; it just goes to sleep for a few decades.

But what about the names that have gone quiet? The ones that once filled playgrounds and office chats, pub quiz teams and post office queues. The Hilda's, the Normans, the Enid's of yesteryear.

Where did they all go?

Time for a nostalgic wander through a few of them.

Hilda

Once common across Britain, particularly among the working classes in the early 20th century, Hilda comes from the Old Norse hildr, meaning “battle”. A tough name, and there was probably none tougher than Hilda Ogden from Coronation Street. Jean Alexander played her from 1964 to 1987, with her curlers, her flying ducks, and her famous “muriel” on the wall. Hilda and her long-suffering husband Stan, the Ogden's of the street.

The only other Hilda I recall was Hilda Braid, who played Florence in Citizen Smith. Robert Lindsay’s Wolfie Smith shouted “Power to the people!” from revolutionary Tooting. Braid, as Florence, brought a mix of motherly naivety and comic relief. I doubt there are many Hilda's in Tooting these days.

Enid

Enid is one of those names that seems destined for the world of writing. We have a best-selling author, 600 million worldwide and counting, Enid Blyton. From Noddy to The Famous Five, she was a prolific writer who had the output of an AI writer today.

Her books were sometimes banned for being too old-fashioned, too class-conscious, or too politically incorrect for the time, but they were read all the same. Even today, millions still read them, though probably on a Kindle rather than with a torch in a secret smugglers’ cave as the tide comes in.

The Boy, the Bonfire, and the Man Called Guy – Remembering Bonfire Night

It begins in October, with the sound of a loud bang in the early evening, followed by an occasional whoosh. It tells me Bonfire Night is almost upon us. Come November, the air will smell faintly of smoke and fireworks—it was the same when I was a boy. 

A memory stirs.

I’m back in a 1960s backstreet, clutching a homemade “Guy” and hoping for a penny or two. This is a look back at Bonfire Night, the real story of Guy Fawkes, and the fading sparks of a very British tradition.

Somewhere in Middle England, late 1960s

A small boy stands outside a corner shop with a homemade effigy, whom we call “Guy”. A bundle of old clothes stuffed with newspaper, a hat perched at a slight angle, and a paper face meant to resemble one of the most famous villains in British history: Guy Fawkes.

“Penny for the Guy?” the boy calls, hopefully.

A man passes, uninterested. The boy tries again. “Penny for the Guy, please, sir?”

A young woman looks over, smiles, and rummages through her basket. She pulls out a purse and produces a big copper penny, and then another — pre-decimal coins that felt like real money.

“Be careful with those fireworks,” she says kindly, handing them over.

He grins, pockets the coins, and can already hear the whoosh and bang of rockets in his imagination.

I was that boy, out on dark nights, asking strangers for a few pennies so I could buy fireworks to celebrate a tradition that, at the time, I had little understanding of. Except we were told that Guy Fawkes was a bad man.

The Spark Behind the Celebration

For those unfamiliar with the roots of Bonfire Night, it all goes back to 1605, when a group of English Catholics plotted to blow up the Houses of Parliament. It was called the Gunpowder Plot, and its aim was simple but spectacular—to assassinate King James I and wipe out much of the Protestant ruling class in one fiery blast.

The ringleader was a man named Robert Catesby. He believed that Catholics were persecuted under Protestant rule, and, in fairness, they were. Catesby’s “solution”, however, was not one that would have gone down well in any century.

Enter Guy (or Guido) Fawkes, a soldier and explosives expert who had been fighting for Catholic Spain. He was recruited to handle the dangerous bit, guarding the barrels of gunpowder and, when the time came, lighting the fuse.

As plots go, it was elaborate, daring, and destined to fail. The conspirators were betrayed before they could strike. Fawkes was caught red-handed in the cellars beneath Parliament with enough explosives to change the course of history.

Whatever Happened to Storytelling? We All Need Stories.

Whatever happened to storytelling?

It’s a question I’ve found myself asking quite a lot lately.

I read that people want real stories, the personal, authentic glimpses into someone’s life. I was watching a YouTube video on this yesterday, and I thought, “Yes, I’ve been there.” But scroll through your average feed, and you’ll see something else entirely. A parade of how-to guides: how to write better, how to be more productive, how to succeed at something (anything!), how to do this and that.

Then there are the ‘how-to’ stories — which, ironically, often don’t contain much storytelling at all.

They all seem to follow the same formula:

• Identify a problem.
• Explain why it matters.
• Offer a neat solution.
• Finish with a motivational takeaway and a promise of success.

And that’s fine, for a certain type of writing. There’s a huge audience for that kind of thing. The self-help and “personal development” world is thriving. But that’s not always storytelling. That’s instruction. It has a purpose — but it’s not quite the same as sitting someone down and saying, “Let me tell you what happened to me one summer…”

Or, “I wrote a book of good stories that might offer a life lesson or two. Hopefully, you enjoy the read.”

A story doesn’t need to solve a problem. It doesn’t need to teach you how to fix your life or build a better version of yourself. Sometimes, a story just needs to help the reader drift off into a different world for a few minutes — escapism.

But surely, storytelling is, and always has been, about entertainment.

Book Review - David Niven - The Moon's a Balloon - The Joy of a Born Storyteller.

 

I first read actor David Niven’s memoir, The Moon’s a Balloon, published in 1971, back in the mid-1970s. It was the first “adult” book that I read. It was adult, in the sense that parts of it were somewhat naughty. Other than that, it was a book of stories that were easy to read. It arguably provided a blueprint for others to follow. 

I came across the book when I saw it on the bookshelf of a neighbour of mine, an elderly lady by the name of Violet. She had an extensive book collection, and would allow me to pick one occasionally to take home and read.

Having chosen a book, I would have to give it to her for approval.

“What have you chosen today?” She would ask.

On this day, I handed over The Moon’s a Balloon, a paperback with a somewhat ordinary cover showing David Niven, with four balloons above his head. Each one containing a word of the book title. As book covers go, it didn’t look like one that would sell millions of copies.

Violet put her reading glasses on. “Ah! David Niven, the old Hollywood charmer. It’s not written for children, but you are probably old enough to read it.” And she was right. Niven had a reputation for being a charmer, a true charming man.

Like a librarian, she passed the book to me. “Look after it, and use a bookmark; I don’t want to see any folded corners on the pages.”

I never folded corners anyway.

But back to the naughtiness.