There are two secret drawers* I can think of from my youth.
The first was a small drawer at the foot of an old fashioned bakelite corded telephone. You know the ones, we grew up with them in the Sixties. Huge clunky black units with a big silver dial. They rang like police panda cars. At the bottom was a small thin drawer with a slender front grip. It slid out when pulled it.
I've no idea what should have gone in there but I loved to slip in a small Action Man map or a Haunted House Wanda the Wicked card, my calling card back then!
What on earth was that drawer for? It was too small for take-away menus and I'm not even sure that there were any in Nineteen Sixties Lancashire! Fish and chips was it and you had to personally go to the chippy for those!
What did you place in that telephone drawer readers?
Writing about this has reminded me of another secret drawer, although I'm not sure I knew about it as a young 'un. Its the sliding tray at the base of a toaster, which comes out in order to clean off all the million crumbs piling up from lots of pieces of toast. These days I take the tray outside and clean it off in the garden for the birds, which for some odd reason is strangely satisfying. Like the bottom of a bird cage I doubt there is any other use for the crumb tray!
The other secret drawer I did know about as a nipper and used regularly was the front number plate of the JR21 Fab 1 toy car. This number plate ejected outwards to reveal a small oblong recess behind it. This was ideal for shoving notes in about 1. your fave girls at skool 2. what you'd like to do to your big brothers next time there was a bedroom war and 3. the names of your top pop stars like Marc Bolan, David Bowie and Slade.
Do you know what I'm talking about readers? What did you do with the Fab1 drawer?
Are there any other clandestine drawers and recesses from your youth?
* imagine if Marvel had called their classic comics Secret Drawers rather than Secret Wars! ha ha.
Hiya Woodsy - the little pull-out drawer found on some 200-300 series bakelite telephones, the type you mention, is generally known as a cheese tray or cheese board. Sorry I've never been able to find out why with absolute accuracy. This was where a small GPO card with local and national dialling codes would be kept... as well as Action Man maps and cut out stars, precious gum cards, and perhaps a secret stash of pocket money cash :)
ReplyDeleteWell i didn't know that Tone, the cheese tray eh! I like it. I think I recall that small chart of important numbers though now you mention it. I do remember the house telephone number written on the central paper disc in the middle of the dial - wonder if that had a name? I do miss proper telephones. Hardy anyone calls us on ours at home now. Maybe they'll vanish altogether!
DeleteYou may be right, Woodsy. Maybe the days of the house phone are numbered ? The mobile seems to be the popular all-singing, all-dancing, Swiss Army Knife of communication technology these days.
DeleteSome had an address book didn't they? Tiny little thin thing with 26 pop-up card pages, and you moved a slider to find the letter you wanted? I may be confusing two memory-fragments here!
ReplyDeleteMaybe Hugh, I'm struggling to remember what was in the tray. I know my parents had a sort of spring loaded A to Z book of telephone numbers and like you say you slid your finger to the letter you wanted and somehow that page popped open! It was kept at the side of the house phone in the hall on a wooden things called a Monk's Bench!
DeleteCaught this a bit late, but to illustrate the bakelite phone Woodsy mentions see here:
ReplyDeletehttp://projectswordtoys.blogspot.be/2016/04/paul-vs-phones.html
Nothing left in the little drawer, but Hugh's recollection is identical to mine!
Best -- Paul
Just checked that link Paul. Superb photograph, which I had forgotten was on the blog! Doh!
Delete'Nothing left on the little drawer' - I like that Paul. It would make a fine epitaph for the last landline phone in the future.
I'd also forgotten about the alphabet on the dial! Not sure I ever used a word either to dial a number or remember a number. A lost art I imagine.
I'm afraid we're just a tad too young to've used letters as part of phone numbers, Woodsy. Though I'm not sure that ever happened in Holland anyway.
DeleteHere around Brussels you can still get an idea where a landline number might geographically be though, from the first three digits in the 7-digit number. Like my parent's place had a number starting with 731 as did every other number in that and an adjoining community. Where I used to live before all had 767 and around the current house everything is 687. (now there's some useful knowledge for an international blog audience! :)
Best -- Paul
i think its the same in Germany Paul. I know they have local codes like here in the UK. My old home town of preston was 0772 whilst I was growing up. At some point the GPO/ BT added a one to these 'SD' codes making it 01772. Only Preston has this code. My current adopted Town of Wakefield has 01977 as its STD code, which is dialed before our actual six digit landline number. I have been trying to recall the family number when I was growing up in Preston but for the life of me can't! I need re-dial in my brain!
Delete'SD'? I meant STD. Doh!
DeleteThose are area codes, Woodsy, but you could still be right. Greater Brussels has area code 02. But if you tack on the first three digits of each individual number, then you get something identical to what you're describing (but only leaving four digits, which allow fewer combinations so might explain why they've added extra 3-digit codes for quite a few areas).
DeleteSo in the end it may just be down to a difference in notation. :)
Best -- Paul