Well done Cath Cooney, Phil Cox, John the CAD, and H J Hill for correctly identifying last week’s curiosity as the dial on an old style telephone.

H J Hill, Settle, points out that the insert has been removed from this dial, which would have included the exchange, line number and advice to use the 999 number.

“The pulse dialling system was patented in 1891 by a Missouri funeral undertaker, surname Strowger, who, legend has it, found that operators at the manual telephone exchange were connecting calls from the bereaved to rival undertakers.Before the digital systems with tone-dialling, telephone exchanges were stacked full of long and high racks carrying vast numbers of electro-mechanical ‘Strowger’ switch-gears, with their parts noisily clicking vertically in steps and rotating in steps. Some lads in my youth developed the knack of rapid tapping on the handset-rests in phone kiosks, which would connect through to a number and by-pass the Button-A-and-B box. Of course, I didn’t do it: I could never get it to work.

999 was chosen for the emergency number instead of 111 because it was far less likely to rise by accident from the known random faults within the electro-mechanical system.”

Bryan, Morgan, collections assistant at Craven Museum, says it is the centre part of a telephone dating from the 1950s or 60s, and made from black Bakelite, with a fabric covered cord, and which would have been used in the Arncliffe area.

Is the centre of a telephone from the 1940s/50s made out of black Bakelite with a fabric covered cord which was used in the Arncliffe area.

“The invention of the telephone was first patented in 1876 by Alexander Graham Bell. However, the Italian innovator Antonio Meucci is credited with inventing the first basic phone in 1849, and Charles Bourseul also devised a phone in 1854. In 1877-78, the first telephone line was constructed, the first switchboard was created and the first telephone exchange began operation. But, by 1905 there were 2.2. million of Bell’s phones connected. There were high hopes for the first phones, in connecting and improving society, but also concerns for privacy, with so called ‘party lines’ when a number of people as well as the switchboard operators were free to listen in.”

Suggestions for this week’s curiosity should be sent before 8am on Monday to lesley.tate@cravenherald.co.uk