Clear-bodied Trimphone, used for promotional purposes
Some time ago, I had the idea for a scene that would find itself in some sort of murder mystery film. A character would speak into a telephone, intentionally misleading whoever was on the other end of the line, then placing their hand over the microphone end of the handset as they describe what was really going to happen to the other person in the room, in much the way that villains always declare their plots out loud.
At the end, as the detective puts together all the elements of the case, rewarding the audience’s attention as they go, it is revealed that the phone on which the villain was speaking was a Trimphone, the ubiquitous angled telephone found across British homes from 1965 onwards, the thinness of its receiver achieved by placing the microphone in the top section, next to the speaker – the other line heard the whole plot, then called the authorities.
Our family had one of these phones at home for years – once upon a time, you either had a standard-issue General Post Office phone in your home, owned by the provider of the phone line, or you rented a comparatively cutting-edge Trimphone for a few extra pence a week. Ours had a two-tone blue colour, the handset and cord in a darker blue than the base – modern reproductions always use one colour for the whole device, missing an important part of the design and aesthetic of the phone.
I now understand my murder mystery scene could not work in practice. It is easy as a child, using what felt like a top-heavy handset, to have thought the sound of your speaking must travel up the obviously hollow handset to the microphone at the top. That is what happens, but the sound is funnelled through a plastic tube running up the inside of the handset. While the speaker and microphone are installed in the top of the handset, with their backs to each other, the microphone fits into the head of the tube, sealing it off from the speaker – putting your hand over the bottom of the receiver will stop any sound coming in, just as the villain hoped.
While still weighing nearly a kilogram, and containing the same mechanism from other GPO telephones, I thought the Trimphone was named for its comparative lightness and angular design, making them a luxury. However, “Trim” is an acronym: “Tone Ringer Illuminated Model” referenced its use of a tone generator over the striking of bells, sounding like an unfamiliar bird or frog, while using a tiny tritium gas canister to make the rotary dial glow in the dark. Much safer to use than radium, tritium was also used by Rolex and other watch manufacturers on their dials, but despite this comparative weakness, and its average glowing lifespan of only twenty years forcing Rolex and others to find alternatives in the 1990s, enough of a worry existed over radioactivity as a concept for Trimphones to be replaced with dials that did not glow. A push-button version only arrived towards the end of the 1970s, requiring the base to be made slightly taller.
A popular complaint about the Trimphone was its comparative lightness caused the base to easily move if you were walking around while speaking to someone – the official answer was to wet the rubber feat to stick it down. Without the need for anything mechanical, I am sure the modern reproductions are lighter still – they may now even have a microphone small enough to fit next to your mouth.
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