We’re all ex-directory now

I had a phone book delivered last week. The final one that will ever grace the shelves of Woodford Towers. A cut-out-and-keep memento that I am encouraged to ‘hold on to forever’.

In 1983, this numerical bible would have been a lifeline to the outside world. Even in 1993, prior to the widespread use of email and the growth of the web, I might have been quite reliant on it. But in 2023, it seems like a bizarre anachronism, as if someone had presented me with a ration card for my weekly shop at Tesco.

As a kid, the phone book was a formidable item that was chunky enough to be used as a door stop. The ability to rip one up with your bare hands was the hallmark of a stage strongman. It was quite simply chock-full of numbers in an age before all our vital information had been reduced to zeros and ones.

The version I received through my letterbox last week was no Arnold Schwarzenegger. More like Danny Devito after a crash diet. The fact that it did come through the letterbox says it all really. An old-school version would have been dumped unceremoniously on the mat outside.

For some strange reason, there were people back in the day who didn’t like the idea of randoms knowing where they lived and being able to contact them. These conscientious objectors opted out of being listed and fell into a category known as ‘ex-directory’, which had a similar stigma to being vegetarian or a member of a religious cult. Everyone else embraced pre-digital doxxing in the same way they all agreed that Old Spice smelled nice and Are You Being Served? was good family entertainment.

Perhaps my strongest memories of phone books were in phone boxes. Growing up in London, you’d have numerous well-thumbed books arranged in alphabetical order along the lines of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. If you were able to brave the smell of stale urine and a haze of tobacco smoke, you could find pretty much anyone and give them a tinkle, spending just 2p. Some people then obviously chose to have a tinkle afterwards too. Just spending a penny.

Perhaps I shall keep this final book forever. In twenty or thirty years, I’ll leaf through and find someone to call. They may be surprised, imagining that they — along with the rest of the population — had been ex-directory for a generation.