Phone Book

[dsr]

Peter and Janet use a phone book in one of the Secret Seven stories. I think they were looking for names beginning with ‘Q’.

Your mention of the letter Q rang a bell, Barnard, and got me flicking through a couple of books. The second one I tried was Good Work Secret Seven, which is probably the one you were thinking of. Pam and Barbara have to find out about Q8061 (or maybe Kew 8061). Janet tells Peter, "...Pam asked her mother how to find out if there was such a number, because she and Barbara really didn't feel they could wade through all the telephone directories. And her mother said, 'Well, just ring up and see if there's an answer!'" Janet adds that when Pam and Barbara rang the number, there was no reply and the operator said it was because there was currently no telephone with that number.

It seems strange now to remember that it was only 50 or so years ago that direct dial became universal. My mother started a taxi firm in the late sixties, and got one or two helpful messages from the operator that certain potential customers weren't worth bothering with because they had rung every taxi firm in town.

[Wolfgang]

In Strange Messages they look for Smith in the telephone directory.

Did they find one?

No, there were dozens there.

‘Yes. I looked them up in the telephone directory to start with,’ said Fatty. ‘There are dozens there - and this man may not even be on the telephone. We can’t go ringing up all the Smiths in the neighbourhood to find out if any of them have a false name!’