Telephone James May: The Reassembler

Hello and welcome to The Reassembler with me, James May.

It's a new series in which we take everyday familiar objects

in their component form and put them back together...very slowly.

Sort of familiar bit.

'It is only when these objects are laid out in hundreds of bits

'and then slowly reassembled...'

Done, done, done, done, done.

'..that you can truly understand and appreciate how they work...'

Ye-ah.

'..and just how ingenious they are.'

Deep joy.

'And if painstakingly putting hundreds of pieces

'back together again...'

Oh, God, it's electrics.

'..wasn't hard enough...'

Fantastic, we've used all the bits.

'..I then have to find out...'

Oh, yes!

'..if they'll work.'

No, it's all come apart.

PHONE RINGS

Since Alexander Graham Bell's 1876 patent,

the telephone has come on a bit.

It's now so sophisticated, it can be used to write to people.

But it wasn't always thus.

Back in 1957, this was as smart as a telephone could be,

and it could do just two things, you could dial a number with it,

or if somebody dialled you, it would ring.

Nevertheless, this was a high watermark in the development

of the telephone, because it was the first GPO British Bakelite

domestic telephone with a bell enclosed in the case.

This phone has 211 separate, tiny parts,

every single one designed with an engineering eye for detail

that is staggering.

We've sent people to the moon in equipment

that has been less well-engineered.

Actually, that's a bit of an exaggeration,

but this is nanotechnology 1950s style.

However, in this form, it resembles

the most mind-bending Meccano set on the planet.

First, we shall assemble the receiver.

The bits are going to go in this plastic pot,

because they're all very small and very easily lost.

Come and just have a quick look at these.

These are tiny, tiny bits that I'm going to have to put together.

Look at the size of that bit.

See?

Now, I've got to be honest, I'm slightly out of my comfort zone,

because I've never done something like a telephone before

and I don't have an exploded diagram.

All I have is a circuit diagram.

That's it.

The rest of it is all down to instinct...

..luck. Who knows?

See that? That's the speaky-into bit,

so that must go on that end.

Obviously, once you've put the innards in.

'The receiver is also a transmitter.

'It uses electromagnetism to convert sound waves into a signal

'that can be transmitted to the person we're talking to

'and vice versa.'

I want to show you an amazing tool I've been lent, look at this.

It's a screwdriver with a sleeve on it. And when you slide

the sleeve along, the end of the screwdriver

becomes slightly smaller. But it's not quite that simple,

because if you look lengthways down it,

there are two separate overlapping blades. And what this means is...

The trouble with trying to do it with little screws is

they fall off the end of the screwdriver

and your fingers are too big to hold onto them.

So that would just drop off.

But if you put it on there and slide that along, the two blades

slide together, become very, very slightly thicker

and then hold the screw on.

Look at that, that is the most brilliant screwdriver

I've ever seen in my life.

I'll come up with a way of nicking it later.

So, having tightened that, if I retract the sleeve,

the screwdriver comes out. That is absolutely fabulous.

Now for some wires.

Now, I've worked out from the wiring diagram -

red, green and white are the three colours going to what would

appear to be the receiver. Red, green and white are what I have

on ye olde...um...

What do you call this bit on a telephone?

The...? What do you call this bit? The cord.

The cord, yes, thank you.

Now, that must go through that.

Special magic screwdriver into there.

Right, the diaphragm piece slides gently sideways.

The diaphragm is a very simplified version of the cone

in the speaker of your home hi-fi.

It simply vibrates and moves a greater volume of air,

so it makes more sound,

sound being just the air moving backwards and forwards.

That should screw on there.

Just before I put it in, this bit is the bit you speak into -

the microphone, if you like.

If you shake it, you can hear...

I'll shake it right next to the microphone.

Can you hear that little ch-ch-ch-ch-ch noise?

Can you hear that, sounds department?

That's...that is the sound of carbon granules inside there,

it's a way of making your voice clearer,

because your voice vibrates the diaphragm behind there.

That compresses and rarefies the mass of carbon crystals.

That changes their resistance,

which then gives you a clearer, better-defined signal

travelling down the wire to the person at the other end

and it will go in his or her ear there.

Now, that rests on a pin there, it's not hardwired in,

it sits on a pin which makes contact.

But that's so that you can easily take it out

and replace it, because these would wear out,

the carbon would become all clumped together,

especially in houses in the 1950s, cos they'd have been horribly damp.

Now, that's got to go to there so...

Clonk, clonk.

Hello, caller.

There you go.

We are 44 minutes into our attempt to reassemble

our 1957 Bakelite telephone with an internal cased bell

and we've a completed receiver.

The intricacies of the receiver, however, are nothing

compared with the next familiar part we have to rebuild - the dial.

Now, returning to the fantastic sweet shop of telephone componentry

with my special little pot, and I'm going to take the components

for the dial plate.

That...that...that brass backing piece

and two tiny, tiny little screws.

That's not a great deal of stuff, but I think it's going to be

quite fiddly to put together, so let's not be over ambitious.

The reason I wanted to make a bit of a thing about the dial plate,

to be honest, is because those of us over a certain age.

I hate having to admit to this, cos it does make me sound very old,

but we do remember a time when most of us

did spend our lives dialling by putting our fingers in holes,

turning the dial and letting it go rrrr back to the beginning.

On the off chance that there is anyone

born after 1990 watching this show,

here's some Americans to tell you how to use a dial telephone.

Before calling any number, first secure the number

from your new directory, then remove the receiver

and listen for the dial tone. It sounds like this.

BUZZ

Dial each numeral in this manner, pulling the dial around

to the finger stop each time.

Be sure to allow the dial to freely return

to its normal position. And this is the ringing signal.

PHONE RINGS

PHONE RINGS

'Meanwhile, back in the 21st century...'

I am starving, but once this is back together,

I can ring up for a pizza.

Well, they didn't have pizza in those days, did they?

I'd have rung up for some boiled beef and carrots.

Those are...

-PRODUCER:

-You're actually building a time machine.

Well, you sort of are. You say that...

If we get this thing working,

I'll probably be able to speak to my departed ancestors on it.

It's one of the things I always used to find very creepy about telephones

when I was a child, because I thought

everything that had ever been said in them was still in them.

CREW SNIGGER

So, I couldn't understand how all those people fitted

in the television either.

I was only about three.

Let's all go and collect some more components,

I think we'll do the other side of the dial

which starts to get very tricky.

Right, I'm going to continue my tireless work on the dial,

which will involve this large plate onto which everything goes,

one way or another, I think. Um, these lovely little brass bits.

Everything is very beautifully made in this, it must be said.

A spring, I think that should do,

that should do us for several hours, I should think.

The first challenge is to build the mechanism

that controls the dial.

That's a cheese-head screw, parallel-sided,

it's got, like, a wheel, a cheese shape on the top.

And that hole there is quite clearly made to accommodate that.

So, that's...that's a bit of a clue to start with.

And that diameter quite clearly passes through that one.

Right, so the spring...

I do like a good spring.

It's a lovely spring.

Lose concentration for a millionth of a second

and the noise you'll hear will be - ping!

That's all you'll hear and then there will be nothing there.

This will be a quantum event - there will be a spring there

and then there won't be a spring there.

There will be no discernible spring making it's way from here

to over there.

It'll just be PING and it will...

it won't be there any more.

I've done it. That spring will go in there.

It'll stay in there forever now, coiled in the darkness,

waiting to respond to the eager fingers of young lovers

and businessmen trying to close deal.

I am just a spring, but I'm here to serve you

by returning that dial to the beginning,

so you can put another number in.

So, if I hold that with my fingers and they line up...

It's extremely nicely made to very close tolerances,

but it would have to be, wouldn't it?

I haven't got the nut on the other end, but you can already see

that's...that's ready to return.

It's exciting, isn't it?

And now that. But I'm not sure how I know what position

that should go in. Maybe it doesn't matter.

Well, it can't matter, because otherwise...

I can tell by the way this thing is made,

if it did matter, they would've made sure I got it in the right position.

That's what the Japanese would call poka-yoke,

i.e. Fool-proofing - making sure something will only go together

the right way.

Thus...

So, that is free to pivot.

Watch the little rubber bit as I dial,

then as that comes back...

It's something to do with the pulsing,

because it's got a slot for every number.

Right, shall we get some more bits?

We are one hour and 32 minutes into the reassembly,

and as well as the receiver and the face of the dial itself,

half the mechanism that controls it has been built,

including the spring that ensures the dial snaps back into position

when being used.

But now it's time to delve into the dark mechanical secrets

that lurk behind the innocent dial of the antique telephone.

Now, this.... I know because I've seen something like this before.

This is a... It's a governor. It's going to slow down the dial

as it goes back, cos that will spin very, very quickly.

Those two weights will be thrown out and will rub on the inside

of that little cylinder

and that will retard, I imagine,

the return of the dial.

We would take the governor and the governor...

I don't know what you actually call that one,

I'm going to call it the governor pot...

..and offer that up to the bearing.

Offer it up is one of those things you see in old instruction manuals

and technical books.

Offer it up means line it up with and get it roughly

in the right position.

Where's the camera gone? Oh, yeah.

Get it roughly in the right position.

But we're not talking about anything permanent yet.

It's not... It's an offer, it is just an offer.

It's not a contract. You offer it up and then you sign the contract

with the screws or whatever holds it permanently in place.

And so I will offer it up to the camera.

Here's our little governor whizzing round and round.

That will eventually be engaged...

engaged with the... I don't really want to call them the teeth,

they're more like pallets on the bottom of that fibre arrangement.

Now, having offered that up, I'm going to offer up the little screws

and washers that hold that plate in place.

Smashing.

It is rather beautiful, it must be said.

There's a little clutch inside that fibre wheel arrangement.

That's fantastic, isn't it?

So, young people, observe.

In the olden days, our telephone number at home was...

Er...01709 37323.

So, let's dial that.

0...1...7...

0...9...3...7...

3...2...3.

That's one number. I mean, it's just agony.

And often sometimes it would be a bit like filling up your car

with petrol, you'd think, "I'll ring Cookie.

"I wonder if he wants to come out to the pub

"I'll ring... Oh, I can't be bothered." You'd give up.

See, the numbers got gradually bigger over the years,

because they had to add an extra number to the number

for the house, then an extra number to the code

and then another extra number to the code,

because nobody ever anticipated how many telephones there would be,

and they're still getting it wrong with mobile phones.

But then again, when the telephone was a new invention,

Graham Bell said it was such a good idea that eventually

every town would have one.

The mayor of London speaking.

The mayor of London, Ontario, speaking

to the lord mayor of London, England.

This little conversation was arranged

by the enterprising GPO to mark the installation

of the millionth telephone

of the London Telephone Service, London, England, that is.

By the mid-1930s, a mere 60 years after the first telephone call,

the telephone had taken over.

We could call places thousands of miles away

and our voices were carried through miles

of telephone exchange systems switchboards

throughout the world.

Hello, London. Hello, London. Havana, we are ready.

The sheer volume of calls was often overwhelming,

but operators came up with some ingenious ways

of speeding things along.

Hello, Buenos Aires. Hello, Buenos Aires.

I'm not a believer that the olden days

were better than the modern world - I think it's complete nonsense.

There are only two things I've ever identified

that genuinely were better in the past,

and those are electric kettles,

because they just break after 15 minutes these days,

and American pick-up trucks,

which were better looking in the '70s.

But something else I may have to admit,

something that was consistently of extremely high quality

was small fixings.

These things are just...they're absolutely gorgeous.

They're just...they're beautifully made.

Two hours and 49 minutes in,

and I have reassembled the receiver and the dial -

that's the mouth, ears and heart of the phone.

But now we're going to look at the brains of the machine -

that is the chassis.

This is where all the electrical shenanigans goes on

and where the telephone is made

to live, if you like,

where its soul dwells.

If Rene Descartes had anything to do with telephones,

he would've said this was its...this was its whatsit gland.

Right...

Now, it is time for a little bit of a confession

because all those bits that I've just collected,

this is actually only half of the story.

We have this going here,

there's that to go inside some wires,

this bit,

this which goes up here and will eventually be screwed on

and capacitors and little transformers and all the rest of it.

But the honest truth is there is also a huge amount of wiring

that's all bundled up under there,

lots and lots of minute soldering.

It's reckoned by the telephone experts that I've talked to

that the process of putting this together could take up to two days.

So, for the first and only time in this series -

possibly even in my life -

I am able to say...

Here's one we prepared earlier.

And I'd just like to point out...

I mean, I...I mean I believe I could do this, of course,

but no-one else is prepared to let me try.

There's a huge amount... Look at that under there.

This is what the world was like before we had microprocessors.

Every single connection, every little on and off

was a separate wire, a separate switch,

an actual physical thing.

That's what all that is.

And this is just one telephone.

And all this telephone does is dial numbers -

that's all it does.

Let's get some more bits.

Some of you will be saying,

"I wish they'd do the whole series like that,"

I know, but tough luck.

Now we shall attach the dial cord

which is that bit,

plus the dial cord fixing screws and so on.

But never mind that -

most excitingly, we can fit...the bells.

Now, it's interesting that the two bells -

I wonder if I can demonstrate this -

are slightly different

because that's what gives a British telephone...

BELL DINGS

..its characteristic rather warm and unaggressive ring.

Also we have the...the rhythm, "Dring-dring, dring-dring"

whereas the Americans - you'll know this from films -

have "Drrrrring..."

"..drrrrring."

The British ring is better, obviously.

BELLS RING

It is weird. I haven't...

I haven't heard those two tones for many, many years,

but it does take me back.

A bit like meeting a kid with mumps.

THEY CHUCKLE

'And while you reminisce about mid-20th century childhood ailments,

'I have a dial cord to attach.'

Beautiful, marvellous.

What you're actually looking at there is a telephone -

that is all the functioning stuff,

it just doesn't look like a telephone yet

because it's not in a telephone case.

And let's not forget this was

the first GPO British domestic provided Bakelite telephone

with an internal bell

so let's internalise the bell.

Out of habit, I've brought my little sweet box thing along,

but actually, all I'm looking for

is the two little - I don't even know what they're called -

the little plungy plip plip plip things, and the...

There you go.

This is from the '50s,

and, I don't know, declarations of love

would've been made down this thing

by people who have since turned to dust,

so it's a bit haunted.

You can imagine they said, "I know your wife's going to find out,

"but I love you."

He's dead, so's she, so's the wife - none of it matters.

The poet Larkin said the only thing that would survive of us is love,

but actually, he was wrong, it's the Bakelite telephone -

it would survive the nuclear winter.

Sorry, forgot my sweet pot.

'We're four hours and 41 minutes into the build,

'and a phone is starting to emerge.

'There's a receiver, a dial, complete with mechanism,

'electrics, bell and case.

'Marvellous.'

Ee-erh!

Now, what I'll do next is put the dial on.

I'm going to have to look at the wiring diagram...

..to remember the order in which those wires connect

to the tiny little contacts on the back of the dial.

And the order goes orange, pink, brown, slate grey, blue.

Orange, pink, brown, slate grey, blue -

that's exactly what we've got.

Now, these are some of the smallest screws in the telephone.

Look. Tiny little screw.

And the screw's a remarkable thing, actually, isn't it?

Shall we think about screws for a minute? The thread form.

That goes all the way back to Archimedes.

But it's one thing we haven't managed to shake off -

we still depend on them.

They attach things together, they make things move in proportion.

Shall I put them in?

'It's only now, after five hours,

'that the 211 separate, mostly minuscule components

'that I started with

'have turned into something reassuringly phone-shaped.'

Quite satisfying.

I'll be honest,

I find that many of the troubles of the world disappear

as I do up a very, very small screw.

There you are, you see.

For five glorious, blissful minutes while I did that,

I'd completely forgotten that my missus left me last night.

LAUGHING: She...she hasn't actually,

but, I mean, I'm always slightly surprised when she's still there.

Now, this, I think, if I've got this right,

these two little... I don't...

I'm not even sure what I would call those.

Are they tabs?

They will go through those slight cut outs in the Bakelite,

and then I will give it a little bit of a turn

and that will lock it in place behind that edge,

and I will put the screw in, the awkward screw from the bottom

and that will be the dial in.

Yeah, you see, that's locked into place,

but we've got to put that little screw in.

Right, I'm expected to get a screw...

That's very awkward,

and the magic screwdriver may not help me here.

It's very dark...inside the 1950s.

Hang on, I need a torch.

Ah, there you go.

Oh, Mistress Irony.

See, imagine if you'd approached Alexander Graham Bell and said,

"Your telephone's brilliant, mate, but I think it needs a torch on it."

I mean you'd...people would've said you were mad.

I think we're in the position...

We're very, very close to telephone closure here.

We can put the base on.

So, those are the feet.

And then the base itself, and I've just noticed -

I don't know why I didn't see this before -

but there's a much, much better wiring diagram for the telephone

actually on the telephone.

It's much clearer. Yeah, it just makes perfect sense.

Now, we're almost there,

but that has to go on.

'After six hours and 37 minutes, this reassembly is almost finished.

'The 1957 GPO Bakelite telephone with internal bell

'will soon be complete.

'Standby, caller.'

Now I've got a little bit of telephone trivia for you,

if you're interested, about the 999 emergency number,

which is written on this little piece of cardboard

that goes on the front of the dial.

And the reason it's 999 is not as a lot of people imagine

because in the dark you can put your two fingers on the dial

and find the nine.

That's a silly theory cos you could just as easily find the zero.

The reason is the telephone works

by sending a series of pulses down the line.

That's three pulses for the number three.

The problem with it is

telephone exchanges would take a while to wake up,

they couldn't wake up with just a one.

They needed a big number like zero

which is why most telephone numbers

began with a zero - that's one problem.

The other problem is that the early telephone lines

were suspended through the air

and if they touched each other, that sent a pulse down the line,

and on windy days, they would occasionally touch

and you'd get a single pulse down the line.

There was a very good chance that you could get

three of those in succession

which would give you 111,

and if you'd made 111 the emergency dialling number,

that would happen by accident all the time.

By making it 999, the chances of you getting

three bursts of nine collisions of wires

are, you know, just billions and billions to one,

so it wouldn't happen accidentally.

That is why we have 999 as the emergency number.

Here is the small piece of...

I imagine that's cellulose acetate or something like that,

with its locating pin at the bottom

so you can't put this perfectly blank circular piece of stuff in

in the wrong position.

It only has a wrong position as a result of having the device

to make sure you put it in the right position.

The 1957 GPO-supplied British domestic Bakelite telephone

with an internal bell.

The weird thing is that when this was new,

this would've been a miracle of technology,

a marvel of manufacturing

because of all those small bits in it.

Now it's old, the thing we like about it is the way it looks,

not the way it works.

Yes, it's part of the history of art and design.

It is part of the history of technology as well,

but old technology is useless.

Old art and design is still interesting.

Shall we plug it in and see if it works?

TELEPHONE RINGS

Will somebody get that?

TELEPHONE CONTINUES TO RING