Dollars and sense: remembering pounds, shillings and pence

On Sunday 12 February 2012, my story - how Australia changed old money for new - was broadcast on ABC radio's Ockham's Razor.

Here's the transcript...

Sunday 12 February 2012 9:45AM

How Australia changed old money for new

On 14 February 1966, Australia changed to a decimal currency. Writer and social

historian Robin Robertson takes us back to that time with some amusing anecdotes of

how the population felt about this change.

Transcript 

Robyn Williams: What does February 14th, next Tuesday, mean to you? Not

Valentine’s Day I trust, or anything so soggy. For me it means one thing, in a word:

money. That’s when I and a few others, including Mark Scott’s granddad, Sir Walter

Scott, back in 1966, helped Australia to go decimal. Mark is now Managing Director of

the ABC and is also keen on decimal currency and keeps asking Canberra to give us

more. But back in 1966 it all seemed too much for some Australians. They were used to

pounds, shillings and pence and, if they owned delis or newsagencies or milk bars, they

were worried about getting funds in time to convert their cash registers. And that’s

where I came in, bending the rules to help Luigi and Rosa to have the till fixed.

Now, 46 years on, it all seems so distant. But for social historian and writer Robin

Robertson, February 14th, 1966, shines on as a date to remember.

Robin Robertson: It seems that Australia is about to meddle with its money again.

There’s a rumour that it is going to withdraw the 5 cent piece because it is too small to

matter. This coin, being the smallest denomination of our currency, is about to go the

way of the one cent piece which, to be honest, no one misses.

The loss of the 5 cent coin is small change really. When it disappears it will not be a

trauma as it was when Australia ditched one system of money and replaced it with

another. Few remember it now but until 1966 Australia paid its way with Imperial

currency, a system of money inherited from mother England.

Then in a brave bid for independence, the Federal Government did away with pounds,

shillings and pence and replaced it with the decimal system, being dollars and cents. Not

that we were willing. Money was the basis of all transactions and we felt that changing

our system of currency was somehow changing the rules. What would happen to the

price of sausages, or to our savings, or the value of our house? Indeed, what was wrong

with that most worthy of money – the pound, the shilling and the penny?

That was when money was really money. It was called the Imperial system and it was

divided by 12. Not like this wimpy decimal currency which divides by 10. Indeed, the

system of twelve had a certain elegance. For instance the number 12 could be divided

into thirds and quarters and still be a whole number. Ten could not. But this advantage

was no match for the march of progress.

It all started when we realised that nine-tenths of the world did not understand our

money system. They could not see the logic of 12 pennies to the shilling, 20 shillings to

the pound and 21 shillings to the guinea. Sometimes we couldn’t see it either.

Here’s an example. If we bought five items at five shillings and seven pence each, what

did that add up to? We needed pen and paper to do the sum. First we multiplied the 5

shillings by five which gave us 25 shillings or one pound, five shillings. Then we

multiplied the seven pence by 5 pence to give us the 35 pence. We called 35 pence two

shillings and 11 pence. Are you still with me? Then we added the lot together and the

final bill was one pound, seven shillings and eleven pence. As you can see there was

plenty of room for error.

On the other hand decimal currency was the science of money for idiots. If you bought

five items at 56 cents each a quick mental calculations gave us $2.80. This of course was

long before cash registers could add and subtract. At that time cash registers only served

to store cash. The rest of the transaction was left to the shopper and the shop assistant

who both had to do the sum then agree on the answer.

So we formed the Decimal Currency Board to organise the change to dollars. A threeyear

publicity campaign preceded it, so people could decide well in advance that they

didn’t like it.

Mercier, the cartoonist, showed how people felt about this change. He did a drawing of a

woman leaning out a window talking to a friend. In the background a man lay on a bed

'I can’t get any cents out of him,' she said, ‘he’s been in the dollardrums since we started

on that new dismal currency.'

The Decimal Currency Board tried to cheer everyone up by explaining how simple it

was. Just double the pounds to give dollars and halve the dollars to give pounds. Ten

shillings equalled $1, one pound equalled $2, five pounds equalled $10 and ten pounds

equals $20. And this is when inflation was invented. On 14th February 1966 all incomes

doubled.

Some shops were accused of taking advantage of the conversion to raise their

prices. Others could not convert some goods to an exact decimal equivalent, so they

stopped selling them in single units. Instead they sold them in lots of three, or ten or

twenty to bring the combined dollar equivalent to the old price. This is why, even to this

day, we are forced to buy a packet of 10 picture hooks when we only want one.

Some people thought the government was bluffing. The Sydney Morning Herald

reported a conversation between two elderly ladies on a bus. 'What do you think of this

decimal currency business, or whatever they call it?' 'Look, I’ll give it about a month and

I’ll bet we’re back to pound notes again.'

But this was no bluff. People realised this when the banks closed their doors for four

days in a row. No one knew what they were doing in there, but it was suspected they

were pulling the ha’penny, the 10 pence and the 11 pence keys, like teeth, off their

accounting machines and tearing up one pound notes.

A Molnar cartoon showed two priests standing outside a Commonwealth Bank, a sign on

the door said ‘Closed for Conversion'.

On 14th February, 1966 the banks reopened, changed from a duodecimal caterpillar into

a decimal butterfly. And, to everyone’s bewilderment, all they had was foreign money

called dollars. The banks insisted it was Australian legal tender.

People took the insult personally. They said 'This money is fit for kids’ games and

nothing else.' 'Except for the publicity, it would be hard to believe it was genuine.' 'I

don’t like it, I prefer my own money.' 'I’m really worried, I tried to give it to a shopkeeper

near my place and he wouldn’t take it. He was Greek. He kept saying it couldn’t be real

money.'

There was a changeover period of two years with the two currencies circulating side by

side. All currency, even clearly marked pound notes, was called dollars and

cents. Column 8 in the Sydney Morning Herald reported a sign outside a suburban

hardware store that said ‘both currencies spoken here’.

Four years later, in 1970, we decided to convert our weights (ounces and pounds) and

measures (inch, foot and yards) to the metric system. Legislation passed without dissent

through both Houses of Parliament. A new board was appointed: the Metric Conversion

Board.

This board had no regulatory powers. It was an advisory board to guide government

bodies that did have regulatory powers. So, the Weights and Measures Authorities

within each state, conforming with advice from the Metric Conversion Board, made

their own binding regulations.

In addition, the board convened meetings with sections of industry who then drew up

their own guidelines for the change to metrics. Metrics were to be gradually introduced

and allowed to seep slowly into the system. Thousands of pamphlets were distributed

throughout Australia and soon people were reading about it. But they did not like it.

Metrics were up against the fundamental human trait—a resistance to change. These

pamphlets told people they were going to lose their very dear friends the inch and the

foot. In 1972 the first metric Melbourne Cup was run over 3,200 metres, carrying a

kilogram handicap. The cricket pitch was changed from one chain to 20.12 metres.

Then the weather went metric and Fahrenheit temperatures dropped to Centigrade. We

learned a new word—Celsius—the media sang jingles about the ‘tingling 10s’ the

‘temperate 20s’, the ‘thirsty 30s’ and ‘flaming 40s’.

At first the weatherman told us both the Fahrenheit and Celsius temperatures so we

could ignore that new fangled Celsius. One day he told us only Celsius temperatures. It

jolted us into wondering how cold 20 degrees Celsius really was, and did we need a

coat?

The next conversion involved our wallets. In 1973 letter and parcel postage was paid for

by the gram. Criticisms of metrics were raised when some people felt that the new rates

favoured the Post Office.

In 1974 rain fell in centimetres, in numbers that made us feel a lot wetter.

Emotions were starting to run high in the butcher shops, where the price of meat,

expressed in kilos, seemed much dearer. One lady went on record ordering a kilometre

of sausages!

Our roads went metric too. All our road signs were in kilometres. Suddenly it was a lot

further to anywhere. Sydney to Perth was 3,412 kilometres instead of 2,100 miles. And

petrol was now sold by the litre, like milk, and you couldn’t work out how many miles

you did to the gallon.

Gradually metrics penetrated the supermarkets. The first metric packet of sugar

appeared in 1971 and soon all other packages and tins were marked in rounded metric

quantities. Some goods were in 450g quantities—an approximate conversion of a pound,

while others were in 250g, 500g, 70g or one kilo packages. Price comparisons of the

same goods were a mathematical somersault.

Meanwhile the calorie became four times bigger, then size codes for clothes went metric

and waistlines were bigger too. Then nuts and bolts went metric and your Imperial sized

spanner didn’t work anymore. Followed by oysters, and a dozen oysters on the menu

sometimes meant 10.

But in this turmoil of change one measurement was untouched—oil flow was still

measured in barrels. Nowadays, that is all that is left of the Imperial system. The rest has

gone.

We have lost the endearments of the old system: we don’t have the florin, zak, tray, quid

or bob any more. Nor can we write songs about walking a million miles for one of your

smiles, or loving you a bushel and a peck, because nothing rhymes with the exact metric

equivalent.

And the kilowatt and square metre will never have the same visual impact of ‘horsepower’ or ‘square foot’. Finally, lost to the world forever, is the ten gallon hat. It is the 43.5 litre hat!

Robyn Williams: Can you have a metric cowboy, with a five shooter instead of a six

shooter? Sounds un-American doesn’t it? Strangely enough, after a stint in the ‘Dismal

Guernsey Board’ in 1966, my first job on joining the ABC 40 years ago this month, was a

series of metric conversion: explaining joules, millimetres and kilos. I even had the

temerity to go to David Jones to ask shoppers for their bra size in centimetres. One bloke

got quite cross. The ladies were just puzzled.

Robin Robertson is a writer and social historian and lives in Sydney. Next week: another

anniversary of the birthday of veterinary science. You’re on RN, your world unsalted. I’m

Robyn Williams.

PresenterRobyn Williams

Producer Brigitte Seega

Robin Robertson

Writer and Social Historian,

Sydney

Comments (11) Add your comment

Is there a podcast for this programme, or is pre-decimal currency not compatible with digital technology?

BWD

margaret chaldecdott :

12 Feb 2012 11:16:44am

at the time of decimalisation of things all and sundry, there was a rather obstroperous union leader.

A letter in one of the dailies was simple -

Metricate Halfpenny

(that was the surname of the unionist)

Meredith :

12 Feb 2012 12:44:51pm

Hi

Thanks for another entertaining and informative programme - interesting to see that your spell check hasn't

changed to program!:)(please do correct my spelling if need be...maybe there is no spell check on this site)

Having been born in 1962 some of these changes occurred when I was very little, but I do recall the "Federal"

brand of matches had on thier boxes educational advertising with the change to dollars. Likewise the later

debate as to how to pronounce kilometer.

Now that I have been learning to fly and to navigate the "6's" and 12's make a lot more sense in terms of time

zones, latitudes and longitudes and nautical miles. Tens are much more easy to calculate but to navigate my

world while I still have trouble flying the plane and doing the mental arithmetic when it comes to nautical miles at

so many knots...then 6's work very well

Ross :

12 Feb 2012 10:32:20pm

Robin asked how would a cowboy go with a 5-shooter.

I refer him to the Smith and Wesson 642 that comes standard with 5 round capacity.

And, as for his assertion that there is only one remaining Imperial unit, I submit the use of thousands of feet, the

international standard in aviation for altitude.

Frances Lemmes :

13 Feb 2012 5:08:04pm

Most interesting,the conversion to dollars and cents 46 years on may seem so easy but it also took alot of the

fun and challenge out of shopping.

Ken R :

13 Feb 2012 9:00:42pm

Decimal currency killed my grandmother. Her diary records that she couldn't work it out so she died eleven days

after it was introduced.

Stephen :

14 Feb 2012 6:09:02am

Jazz music by Kilometers Davis.

The US auto industry is totally metric. It's fun to hear two engineers talking as if "16 inch wheels" is a product

name, and then metric measurements.

In addition to ditching horsepower and BTU, which need to be converted before any reasonable use, i'd like to

ditch parsecs. Light Years will do.

Allan Gardiner :

23 Aug 2012 2:04:32pm

Your finale's fairly pointed Stephen, but, in a word, and as distant as it may seem from the topic p_un'der

discussion, parsecs help put things into parsepecti..err..perspective, and aspectually aid a body in looking at

things from a different an_gle'aned. "Light Years", on the other hand, if they were f_ad'opted as a p_un'iversal

p_un'it of mere marginal measurement...merely introduce a paradoxi_cal'culating para_lax'ity!

Christopher Murray :

15 Feb 2012 9:31:02pm

In Britain and Ireland, decimalisation came five years and one day later.

In Ireland in 2002, we started using banknotes and coins of another decimal currency (the Euro), which had a

conversion factor of 0.797854. It confused a lot of people, and somebody said that because it particularly

confused the elderly, we should have waited until all the old people had died!

In Ireland, we are also more-or-less fully metricated now (unlike Britain), but it is not unusual to see produce or

meat priced per 0.454kg.

Patrick McGeown :

16 Feb 2012 5:10:26pm

I remember cream buns at school being 4d. But 4d became 3 cents overnight. So my threepence and 1 penny was

not enough to make the purchase. But three pence on its own was three cents. So I exchanged my threepenny

bit for 3 cents. Exchanged the 1 penny for one cent. And I got my cream bun. I thought I was so clever.

Allan Gardiner :

23 Aug 2012 6:16:55am

The Decimal Currency Board -- at any time, even circa 1966 -- would have failed miserably in any attempt at

trying to cheer people up in explaining how simple it was to make the conversion from pounds, shillings and

pence to dollars and cents if they did indeed say, as Robin Robertson did, in her 10th paragraph:

"Just double the pounds to give dollars and halve the dollars to give pounds (sic)."

One must actually halve pounds to get dollars and double dollars to get pounds! 1 pound did -- even at that

economically-equivocal epoch -- equal $2.00, ergo, half of 1 pound must equal $1.00! It's so simple, but if one

doesn't watch very carefully -- which Robin clearly didn't -- what one is trying to promulgate, then all hell can

break loo_se'quentially, and most often does. I'm very surprised indeed -- given the fact that Ockham's Razor is a

very popular program -- that no one until now has brought this error to light.

Letter to the editor:

'There was this bloke who bought a farm in 1966.  When the money changed to dollars and cents, his overdraft doubled.  Then they brought in kilograms and his woolclip dropped by half.  After that came Celsius, the weather changed, and there's been no decent rain since.  When hectares came in, he ended up with half the farm he formerly had.  They brought in litres, and his petrol cost more.

'Depressed, he decided to sell out.  However, the agent told him that since the change to kilometers, he was too flamin' far out of town!'

Mrs B. Cummins, Berowra Heights, NSW. 

The QWERTY keyboard - here to stay?

Here's a transcript of my radio broadcast on the ABC's Ockham's Razor.  It explains why we are stuck with the clunky QWERTY keyboard.

Broadcast on Sunday 29 July 2012 9:45AM

Image: (bennylin0724)

There is no sense to its layout. Touch typists have wired their brains for the qwerty keyboard. Despite some attempts to introduce other layouts, qwerty has become part of almost every digital device which requires human input. The qwerty keyboard seems embedded and immovable.  Robin Robertson discusses the history of qwerty and the power of touch typists.

• ABC Radio National

Ockham's Razor

Robyn Williams:  When did you learn to type? We all do it now, don’t we? We have to. I learned to type (or really to hunt and peck) when I was 12. My mother had organised several hundred envelopes that needed to be addressed and there was no question of making mistakes, so I spent untold hours, over several days slowly pecking away until some muscle and eye knowledge of the keyboard got sort of wired in. It’s been there ever since, the bad habits have become engrained.
And the first thing you notice as the patterns become familiar is that they are nuts. None of it makes sense. This is even more apparent when you go to Japan or Italy or some other place where the A seems to have gone feral or the @ disappears somewhere. Why is there no consistency? Why is it all so bizarre?
Here with some answers is Robin Robertson, social historian, from Sydney.


Robin Robertson:  The keyboard for typing has never had it so good.  It is everywhere, taking centre stage on any desk and always with its sidekick the computer.  Even if there is no desk, we’ll still find a keyboard, ready and willing in our mobile phones and laptops.
The keyboard is the public face of our computers, mobile phones and digital toys and is the only way we can speak to them.   Indeed, it is the core of all communication in a cyber world and without it we’d be struck dumb.
We’ve had a long relationship with the keyboard.  It’s been around for about 140 years and it has never let us out of its sight, although, if the truth be told, we have long since moved on.  The problem is the layout of the keyboard.  It is clunky and illogical.  It is as outdated as carbon paper.  Why is it still with us?
This layout has a pet name.  It’s called, fondly or not, after the first six letters on the upper row – QWERTY.  QWERTY is the love child of touch typists.  They are its steadfast disciples because it is the secret of their command of the keyboard. Without touch typists QWERTY would have been trampled by the march of progress – but more about them later.
QWERTY started life on a mechanical typewriter, then hitched a ride on advancing technology into the computer and mobile phone.  Nowadays QWERTY has a worldwide following.  It tops the list of any product to be collectively adopted despite the fact that it offers no technological advantage.
Isn’t it time we ditched it?
Well, I don’t think QWERTY is going away any time soon.  It has technology over a barrel because it is as deeply embedded in its systems as the alphabet.  But did you know that QWERTY’s clumsiness was a deliberate part of its original design?
The first keyboards on a mechanical typewriter were laid out in alphabetical order.  However, under the control of a competent typist, this layout caused the type bars to entangle as they hammered towards the one small target and arrived at the same time.  To solve this problem, a mathematician was called in to do the sums; he calculated the odds when typing the English language, on how often each key would be called into action.  He then dazzled everyone by creating what he called the ‘scientific’ keyboard in an arrangement that spread the more popular keys as far from each other as possible.  This was designed to slow the typist, while also sharing the load over most of the fingers.
QWERTY’s career was launched, although the layout varied slightly to accommodate differences in language.  For instance in French speaking countries, the layout is AZERTY.  Nowadays, QWERTY typists can be roughly divided into two schools of thought.  There’s a hunt and peck school that relies on seeing the keys and the touch typist school that relies on not seeing them.
Hunt and peck can tell you where the ‘u’ key is by sight.  They are sometimes called ‘biblical typists’ meaning “Seek and ye shall find”.  Speaking as a touch typist I can assure you that hunt and peck requires no training or finesse, is primitive, slow and prone to errors – but I digress.
Touch typists take a certain pride in the fact that they cannot tell you where the ‘u’ key is.  They can only find it by muscle memory.  After months of rigorous training and long hours of practice they are conditioned to set their fingers on the home keys.  From there the index finger of the right hand automatically seeks out the ’u’ which is up one row and slightly to the left. In fact, the mere sight of a keyboard unsettles touch typists because they know it will interfere with their programming.
Their skill, being the creation of words, is buried so deep in their subconscious that it is, curiously enough, beyond words.  It lies dormant and is mostly harmless – unless someone tried to take it away from them.
Being QWERTY androids, touch typists will not listen to sweet reason, that the mechanics of a superseded typewriter are irrelevant to the computer keyboard, in a cyber environment there are no keys to jam, that QWERTY has lost its justification for cluttering up the keyboard, that it should be replaced by a logical layout.  This is not a new idea.  Many have tried to replace QWERTY – all have failed.
One serious challenge to QWERTY arose in 1932 when Dr August Dvorak patented a simplified keyboard layout.  A battle for dominance between keyboard layouts ensued and it was clear that a single standard had to be set.  Many had a financial stake in QWERTY
First and most intractable were those touch typists who had been created in the millions by both their education and typewriter manufacturers.  Large manufacturers were also reluctant to risk an investment on a new layout as typewriters were expensive machines. 
And bringing up the rear were colleges for secretarial studies, where typing training was almost always with QWERTY for two reasons – to meet expectations of the industry and because it was already familiar to most teachers and trainers.  In this way, history conspired to lock in QWERTY.
Dr Dvorak died a disappointed man, never to know that his keyboard was not a complete dud and that it would one day become a standard option in many computer systems with a switchable Dvorak/QWERTY keyboard.  In fact his layout was used by Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple Computer.
Here’s how Dvorak’s layout works.  The most popular letters take pride of place on the keyboard and become the new home keys on the middle row.  They are A, O, E, U, I, D, H, T, N, S.  The less popular ones P, Y, F, G, C, R, L are at the top and replacing QWERTY and the also rans Q, J, K, X, B, M, W, V, Z on the bottom row.  Dvorak proponents claim this layout uses less finger motion than QWERTY, reduces errors and we could also type 35% faster.
The world typing speed record holder for 1985 Barbara Blackburn used the Dvorak keyboard to clock a peak speed of 212 words per minute on an electric typewriter.  She could maintain 150 words per minute for 50 minutes.  The winner in the Ultimate Typing Championship final in 2010, American Sean Wrona, used a QWERTY computer keyboard to achieve sprint speeds of 256 words per minute.  You can check it out on YouTube.
But for our daily general input, do we want to type so fast?  Computer keyboards are not designed for quick data entry. They are intended for filling in forms or making comments or witty quips in emails, tweets or facebook, or simply ticking the box. For the longer format, beyond one paragraph, the computer keyboard is ideal for visual thinking.
Moreover, typing is no longer the exclusive domain of purpose-built typists, a skill that enabled many to earn a respectable living from the 1930s onward.  In the lost era of mechanical and electrical typewriters, touch typists were employed in offices with a strict division of labour, those who typed and those who did not.  Those who did not type were management and their function was not clear except that they were climbing the corporate ladder and typing was not in keeping with their status.
Enter the computer with its flashy screen and email links and a generation later, typing is hot. Now everyone types. It is the new handwriting and is the only way to get your message across.  In fact, it is now the primary tool of personal communication.  And the latest technological developments are now signalling a new direction for the keyboard.
For instance, the mobile phone keyboard has now been shrunk to fit and only allows texting with two very small thumbs.  Speed does not enter into it. Then there’s the virtual keyboard on the flat touch screen of a tablet computer.  QWERTY appears invitingly on the screen ready to do your bidding.  But make no mistake, this keyboard is designed for the hunt and peck school.  If, as a touch typist, you rest your fingers on the home keys, the screen erupts into a nonsense of letters.
In a reversal of established typing conventions, the virtual keyboard is insisting that you back off, do your thinking elsewhere and return when you have something to say.  The QWERTY keyboard, which was custom designed for touch typing, is now untouchable.  Is this where the next generation of keyboards is heading?
As your hands hover over the flat touch screen, do you accept its conditions of use and just get on with the job? Or will you reject it as yet another tyranny of the keyboard that has a strangle hold on the future?
Of course you still have the option of old technology.  You can circumvent this virtual keyboard and buy a detachable and touchable keyboard (which is so last year) to plug into your tablet computer.
Resistance to change is not new.  It has always been with us.  One of the first concepts for a keyboard was copied from the past; the black and white keys of the piano.  If you could play the piano and many did in those days, you could make yourself useful and type.
When the first typewriter went into commercial production in America there was no market for it.  Remington & Sons took it on when demand for guns dried up what with the end of the Civil War and all.  Production of typewriters replaced guns in the factory.
Next was marketing.  Typewriter manufacturers were giving consumers what they wanted before they knew they wanted it and over 100 years later, Steve Jobs did the same with the computer.  It was a new invention and useless unless someone could operate it.  Manufacturers trained women to type and more or less ‘marketed’ them along with the machines.  In effect, the typewriter was the hardware and the typists were programmed as the compatible software. From then on QWERTY was in safe hands.
In later years, the push to introduce a more efficient keyboard layout and ditch QWERTY had to contend with these women.  They controlled the keyboard and by extension production of the written word.
And believe me, you come between a touch typist and QWERTY- at your peril.

Robyn Williams: Robin Robertson and some typing history.
And wouldn’t it be nice to take away all those guns from wild-eyed young men and to give them typewriters instead, like the one I’m using right now? Dear thing, it says it’s Jurassic.
Next week we go to southern New South Wales where Mark Whittaker has a field full of cattle. Are they really farting us into oblivion, or are there green cows as well?

Guests

Robin Robertson

Writer and social historian
Sydney

Credits

Presenter

Robyn Williams

Producer

David Fisher

Sundays 7:45am

Presented by Robyn Williams

• 
  

Back yard cricket: that great Australian tradition.

Last summer, my story about backyard cricket was published in Reader's Digest. The setting is anyone's back yard on a fine summer evening...

(Note:  click on the page to enlarge)

My radio broadcast on Radio National's Ockham's Razor on 1 September 2013.

This story (written and recorded by me) was broadcast on Sunday 1 September 2013 on Radio National's 'Ockham's Razor'.

ABC radio then loaded it onto its website, where it attracted 222 'likes' and 25 comments - so far (5sept13) along with 29 tweets (copied at end of article).  

Update:  227 'likes' (as of 8 September).    

The early years of the mobile phone in Australia

Monday 2 September 2013 11:01AM

Robin Robertson

Image: Owning a mobile phone in 1990 went hand-in-hand with success and possessing good looks. (Hulton Archive/ Getty Images )

In 1989 historian Robin Robertson saw her first mobile phone on a bus in Sydney. She wrote a piece about her first impressions which was published in a newspaper, and later incorporated into the high school curriculum of NSW. Read her article and sit the comprehension test to discover anew the impact of these ubiquitous, intrusive devices.


The mobile phone has been with us for 40 years, but it took a while to get up to speed.  In its formative years it kept a low profile and was rarely seen in public.

In 1989, it had been around for 16 years when I first saw a mobile phone in action on a government bus. And, along with about 35 other passengers, it had my undivided attention.
I felt I had seen a pivotal moment in technology, so I wrote an eyewitness account and sent it to a mainstream newspaper.  A few days later, it was published.

At that time, the mobile phone was not just a novelty, it was a luxury item, retailing at about $2,000.  That’s over $4,000 in today’s money.  Although it had a battery life of a mere 75 minutes, subscription and call charges were very high.

So you can be sure that most of the newspaper’s readers were not mobile phone subscribers. Only six in every thousand had one in 1989, compared with today, where there are 1.3 mobile phones per person.

A ringing phone brings out the primitive human reaction: fight or flight - depending, of course, on how the phone has treated you in the past.  If you can't run away from it, you stand your ground and argue with it.

Robin Robertson, historian

But back in 1989, the mobile phone’s scarcity simply added to its status, ensuring that it only kept the best of company with top executives and city traders.  It later proved to be not just a pretty face, and became a vital business tool for travelling salesmen and delivery drivers, but was still far too expensive for personal use.

Which is possibly why my newspaper article hit a nerve and took on a life of its own, as it was picked up and reprinted in a high school textbook on Themes and Issues.

The textbook’s title was The Future, and my article had become a comprehension test for students.

You could find my article on page 73, followed by probing questions on page 74, searching for its deeper meaning.

No answers to these questions were supplied so I am none the wiser, and certainly would have failed the test.

See how you go with the comprehension test. But first, here is the story on which you will be tested.  Again: the year is 1989, and the action takes place in the central business district of Sydney, Australia.


The headline set the scene:
'A mobile man makes his mark on captive audience'

Then continued:
'I was on a bus travelling down George Street to Central Station when the phone rang.  About half the seats were occupied, and we all looked around for the phone, which isn't a part of government bus issue.

'A ringing phone brings out the primitive human reaction: fight or flight—depending, of course, on how the phone has treated you in the past.  If you can't run away from it, you stand your ground and argue with it.

'I, for one, went on the alert.  I itched to answer it, if I could find it.  But the man two seats away beat me to it.  It was a cellular phone that he carried in a square shoulder bag.  He flipped up the lid and out came the phone.  We all watched, hoping perhaps it might be for one of us.

'I suppose the conclusion was foregone.  It was for him.  The caller didn't have to ask: 'Is Jim there?' because a cellular phone precludes any such foreplay.  The question really was:  is the phone there?  And it was, because Jim answered.

'And, right there, in the middle of a government bus, Jim struck up a business conversation.  Nice and loud so we could all listen.  Well, we weren't doing anything else at the time.

'Jim told his caller—and us—that he was on his way to Central Station, where he intended to catch a train to Katoomba, and a nice day for it too, and he had been meaning to get in touch—we all knew he was lying, because people always say that when they have no intention of maintaining contact.

'He went on to express his indignation that the account had gone to another advertising agency (which he named) that was nowhere near the standard of the caller's agency (we assumed the caller had an agency).  It was a damn shame, he said—and we knew he didn't care two cents.

'In general, we didn't take kindly to Jim, or anyone, really, who carried a cellular phone on a government bus.

'Phones should stay put—on the kitchen bench or the office desk.  People go to phones.  Phones do not go to people.

'It is an intrusion that phones should go on an outing and be allowed to ring in public places.  Unless, of course, it is for me.

'On the other hand, Jim didn't have to go to Katoomba by himself.  He could, at the first twinge of loneliness, phone all his mates.  On the down side, his enemies could hunt him down in a government bus and force him to tell lies while the rest of the passengers sat in judgment.

'The phone call was made all the less ordinary by the background noises.  As Jim talked, the bus had a near miss with a truck.  Our attention was then divided between Jim's conversation and the bus driver shouting fruity abuse at the truck driver.  Both were stopped at the traffic lights, the truck a few centimetres from the bus.

'The bus driver's vocabulary was specific and expletive and drowned out Jim's conversation. He then further defended his honour by leaning out of his window and throwing a punch at the truck driver who, hanging out of his passenger window, was a sitting target.

'The lights turned green, the bus driver sat back and drove on. Jim talked on, his image in tatters, as the caller now believed he had just been involved in a bar-room brawl.

'Why, we wondered, was Jim on a bus?  If he could afford a cellular phone, surely he could also afford the car to go with it.

'That was the missing component—the car.

'In his car, no one could listen in.  He could drive through peak hour traffic, talking on the phone and onlookers from other cars with no phones could imagine he was making decisions that would turn the economy around.

'Furthermore, they would be impressed that he was so vital he could not be out of contact for even a short car trip, and did he take calls in the shower?

'A cellular phone is a badge of corporate approval.  Everyone wants one, if only to be seen with it...'



That was the article I wrote in 1989. Now you have no doubt some questions of your own.

• 

  
  

We should continue with the school text and deal with the comprehension questions that followed the article.
With the benefit of hindsight, you may know the answers.  Then again, you may not…
1. In what ways do you notice technology intruding into more areas of our lives?
2. What are the benefits, and what are the drawbacks, of these technological changes which you can see?
3. In a small group, locate and list all of the criticisms the author made about this telephone call in a bus
4. Now compare your list with other groups.
5. How valid are these criticisms, in your opinion?
6. What warning signs are there in these criticisms for the future of technological communication?
7. 'People go to phones.  Phones do not go to people.' What is the warning message behind the author's comment?
8. Are there any drawbacks you can see in the ways telephones, fax machines, video-phones and computer bulletin boards allow people instant communication with other people?
9. The author hints that face-to-face talking would not allow so many lies to be told in this bus-telephone conversation.
10. How is face-to-face conversation different from electronic communication?
11. How do people still manage to hide their true feelings in face-to-face conversation?
12. Is it harder or easier than when on the phone? Why?
13. Try a back-to-back conversation in class about a current school topic and then compare this with a face-to-face conversation.
14. What are the different communication techniques used on the telephone?
15. In what ways are human relationships enhanced, and in what ways are they inhibited, by technological advances?
16. If we look into the future and see computer/video watches, computer screen school books and Walkman TVs, how can we make sure that these inventions are for the benefit of our children, the people who will have to use them to live a 'normal' life in the future?
And that concludes the comprehension test. Over to you.
This article is an edited transcript of Robin Robertson's Ockham's Razor.

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