Good old ‘ringy-dingy’ days

Long… short… long. I can still remember the ring that heralded calls when I had party line phone while living beside Lake Dawson northeast of Lachute, Quebec. Over five decades later, it’s a concept that is totally foreign to the vast majority of Canadians.

For those unfamiliar with party line concept, here’s how they worked. Usually four or more customers would share one line. Each Bell subscriber had their own telephone number, each with its own distinctive ring. The only downside to the party-line approach was that, in addition to hearing your own signal comprised of a Morse code-like combination of short and long rings, you would hear the ring tones of the other neighbours on your party line.

If you’re wondering about telephonic privacy with this system, there was none. Hence, party lines fast became a major source of entertainment and gossip. On the plus side, they were also a quick means of alerting entire communities about fires and other emergencies.

Multi-party lines were the norm when telephone service started becoming widespread in the late 1800s. And while the practice was gradually phased out for urban subscribers, party lines were a cost-saving option (often the only option) for those living in small towns and rural areas for much of the 1900s.

The main impetus for replacing party lines with single subscriber lines was the growing demand for answering machines and computer modems in the closing days of the 20th century. These technologies were totally incompatible with party line phones.

These days, party lines have gone the way of the buggy whip. Even in Dunvegan. However, as recently as 2015, there was at least one party-line phone still in operation in this area… at the Glengarry Pioneer Museum. When I spoke with her back then, Jennifer Black the Museum’s curator, told me with a sigh, “It’s hard to believe, but yes, the museum is still on a party line.” Admittedly, it was a party of one. They didn’t share it with anyone that they were aware of. “When I started working at the museum,” said Jennifer, “one of the Committee members researched alternatives and in the end it was decided to leave the line as it was since it was cheaper than a business line.” Nevertheless, the savings did come with some disadvantages.

First of all, party line phones were not digital. Even with push- button phone sets, they still used the old “pulse” technology that converted each button push to the signal a rotary dial phone would generate. This archaic technology wasn’t really a problem most of the time… except when they were making a call that required additional keypad inputs, like push 1 for English or press 3 for Accounting. For these calls, they had to use a cell phone.

“We also had the pleasure of talking to a real live operator every time we made a long distance call,” reported Jennifer. “We had to tell them what our phone number was, so they knew which account to charge for the long distance call.”.

When the time finally arrived to upgrade the museum’s line, Jennifer called Bell to inquire about a more modern alternative. She hit a brick wall, though. None of the Bell customer service representatives had the faintest idea what a party line was. “They didn’t know what I was talking about,” Jennifer said. She suspects (as I do) that their Your Call’s Important centre was located on the other side of the globe, which probably didn’t help.