I wrote before about how modern technology is so much part of our lives, that it’s sometimes difficult to remember when you couldn’t be instantly in touch with anyone you wanted anywhere in the world.
http://loiselden.com/2013/03/19/before-the-mobile-phone/
The first person I knew personally who had a mobile or cell phone was my cousin who had one in 1991; the first one I ever held in my hand was a friend’s in about 1994 and the first one I ever had myself was in 2000. I had a word-processor in the 80’s but i didn’t actually see how the internet worked until I was visiting the same friend who’d had the mobile phone (what a techie she was!) in about 1998 and she showed me how to go on-line.
How life has changed since then! But writing a story set before there was this modern technology means a lot of rethinks. However, the story I am at present editing was written in the 90’s and no technology is included. It’s interesting, therefore to see that Jaz, the main character moves into a rented flat with no land-line, and has to use a public telephone box (remember them?) In the school she teaches there is a phone in the staffroom, but if she want to ring anyone she has to ring the school secretary and ask for an outside line. When she finds her landlady has been murdered she has to rush out into the street and try and find a public phone, she has no mobile to call the police. Aspects of the plot also hinge on the fact that Jaz can’t get in touch with people at crucial times, however when I wrote it that wasn’t used a s a device, it’s just the way things were!
Lois Elsden 