Will DH need a phone for track and trace (pubs/bars)?

[Fuckinellitsme]

Not sure whether to post in here or Coronavirus so opted for here for traffic.

Last summer when we went to pubs we were able to check in using my phone, but I keep hearing that this time around everyone in a group needs their own phone/app to check in, even if they live together. If you've been out this week, have you found this to be the case? There have been stories in my local paper about older people without smartphones being turned away from their local - not sure if this is government guidelines or just down to the individual business.

DH doesn't have a phone and doesn't want one - will be still be able to go to the pub (or anywhere where you have to check in)?

@ineedaholidaynow

What numbers do you give as emergency contacts to school if you don’t have phones, family or friends? I would hate for the emergency contact to be social services.

DD is 25 so no need for emergency contacts to school. And anyway, I have a phone, so in the past they'd have contacted me. I'm fairly sure I wasn't the only parent with no family or friends, either. What does social services have to to with it?!

So strange that this has turned into a debate about DH's choice not to have a phone. Some people don't want or need one.

I know plenty of people who don't have mobile phones - it's a bit unusual, yes, but hardly shocking, surely?

@Fuckinellitsme because if school can’t get hold of the emergency contact number social services is the next call. So if they only have one number to call and that isn’t available then they would have to phone social services. So I would much prefer a friendly known face to be there for my child if I couldn’t be there to pick them up if required.

@sunflowersandbuttercups

I know plenty of people who don't have mobile phones - it's a bit unusual, yes, but hardly shocking, surely?

You'd think, wouldn't you?!

If there's no need for one and no desire for one it's not really so difficult to see why someone wouldn't buy one. He'd rather spend money on things he actually enjoys. Even the cheapest smartphones are over £100 - that's a chunk towards a guitar (we both play so I get something out of that too!), or a lovely evening out, or gig tickets, or money towards a trip (when we can do those things again). Much more fun than a phone nobody wants.

@Fuckinellitsme my dad doesn't have a phone - my mum bought him one and AFAIK it's still sat, unopened, in a kitchen drawer

He just doesn't need one - not everyone does. He uses Facebook, twitter and e-mail, and will ring people on the landline if necessary, but he will go to the grave not understanding mobile phones!

[quote ineedaholidaynow]@Fuckinellitsme because if school can’t get hold of the emergency contact number social services is the next call. So if they only have one number to call and that isn’t available then they would have to phone social services. So I would much prefer a friendly known face to be there for my child if I couldn’t be there to pick them up if required.[/quote]
When DD was in primary school I was friendly with one other mum who I could call if I was running late or whatever, but only in theory, because that never happened. In all her years of being at school this was never a problem - I was always available when they called.

Of course in the extreme situation you describe a friendly face would be better but sadly people can't just magic up friends and family if they have neither (and many don't).

@sunflowersandbuttercups I've tried to get DH to use a phone in the past, before he was wfh (usually an old one of mine or DD's, there's zero point spending money on a new one). Occasionally he's carried it begrudgingly for a day or two until it runs out of charge but then it's forgotten. He's 37 and uses all manner of computers at work, and has a tablet he uses at home, so it's not that he doesn't understand them - he just doesn't want one. It's quite refreshing actually, when most people (myself included) are pretty much addicted to their phones!

I would think it is most unusual to have no friends when you have children. They tend to be the catalyst to making friends when they are young.

I was in a pub beer garden yesterday and didn't have to give any details? No booking just turned up.

I don't have the app, happy to scan a QR code or fill in a form.

@Boomchicka I assume that pub was breaking the rules. I thought they were being stricter this time round

Yes was told everyone needed yesterday , I don't have the app so just filled in form

Im 45 and not all my friends had landlines growing up , we had lots of phone boxes around
Not everyone wants a mobile phone my dh didn't for ages ( has work one ) when he is out surfing etc its another thing to store

@MayIDestroyYou I lived in london and a few friends never had landlines late 80's/90's as they couldn't afford them it was that simple
My nan only got house phone in 80's when she started working for bt , in fact thats when most of my family got them

People need to leave the op alone for her and dh life choices , if they don't want a mobile or house phone thats up to them.
I really wonder how people managed for so many years without
Yes they are good but sometimes a pain as sometimes I don't want people calling me when I am out so I turn it off

People need to leave the op alone for her and dh life choices

It's an open thread on a discussion forum on the Internet - people can comment as they like within MN guidelines.

And it is quite disturbing to hear from someone whose entire nuclear family has no other family, nor friends. I'm probably quite unusually solitary - but even I find the OP and her husband's lack of social engagement pretty extreme.

@MayIDestroyYou Hartlepool in the North East of England.
I wonder if your upbringing was somewhat more privileged (or better off at least) than mine? We were (are!) working class, and a phone was a definite luxury for us in the early 80s. It was well into the 90s before I would say "everyone" had a landline.
I got my first mobile in 2000.

Does he not need to make work calls?

@MayIDestroyYou

People need to leave the op alone for her and dh life choices

It's an open thread on a discussion forum on the Internet - people can comment as they like within MN guidelines.

And it is quite disturbing to hear from someone whose entire nuclear family has no other family, nor friends. I'm probably quite unusually solitary - but even I find the OP and her husband's lack of social engagement pretty extreme.

How is it 'disturbing'?

It's not 'lack of social engagement' by choice, we're not cutting ourselves off from the world - DH works, DD is about to start teaching, we go to gigs and so on (usually!) and chat to people. Lots of people have no family, either because there's none living or they're NC. Not everyone has friends. It's a bit sad occasionally on family type occasions like Christmas/mother's day or whatever when families gather. But day to day it's absolutely fine. To say it's disturbing is being a tad melodramatic!

@BernadetteRostankowskiWolowitz

Does he not need to make work calls?

Only when he's at work, and he uses his work PC to make them.

[quote PomBearWithoutHerOFRS]@MayIDestroyYou Hartlepool in the North East of England.
I wonder if your upbringing was somewhat more privileged (or better off at least) than mine? We were (are!) working class, and a phone was a definite luxury for us in the early 80s. It was well into the 90s before I would say "everyone" had a landline.
I got my first mobile in 2000.[/quote]
Same here.

I grew up in South Wales, very working class upbringing. When we got our first landline in the mid 80s it had its very own table and chair in the hallway, and my mother put a lace doily under the phone, which she dusted every morning . It was definitely aspirational for us and my mother saved and saved to be able to afford the installation. When I was in primary school in the early 80s having a home phone marked you out as 'posh' (in reality you were probably lower MC). And I definitely remember well into the 80s people asking if you were 'on the phone' before exchanging numbers.

Its quite upsetting to see people saying negative things about the OP having no friends. Do people really not understand that not everybody needs or wants friends or finds it difficult to make friends? I find it very very difficult to make and keep friends due to adhd. Literally the only person I spend any decent time with is my mum. I have a brother and niece who I see weekly for 5 mins as I drive niece between her parents houses. I speak to a couple of neighbours when I see them. Other than that, nobody. Unemployed.

PomBearWithoutHerOFRS, this is very interesting (and you would probably be surprised if you met me ...) I've lived all over England, north and south - but from my earliest childhood both my parents had jobs that involved being on-call, so their working lives would have been impossible without a house phone.

I'm completely accustomed to family members living outside Europe not having a house phone - it was a complete pain. But I've never thought of it as a thing in England. We certainly weren't rich when I was a child, but not poor either. I remember as a toddler speaking to my father on the phone (60s) when he was working away from home, chatting to my friends on the phone in the hall (70s) - particularly once I moved to senior school and there were always meet-ups to arrange. There was an awkward period in the mid-90s when other people started getting mobiles and I didn't have one. Don't think I had my first mobile till 1999.

I respect your DHs choice to not have a phone and do this thing called talking to people, or using a landline. Indeed I only have one because work provides it given my on call responsibilities and now wfh.

My understanding is that pubs are required to take details of everyone (via the app or other means), not just the person who books the table. If it makes it more difficult for serial adulterous men to be with their mistresses then so much the better, even though the reason to assist with tracing people should there be cases of Covid 19.

My understanding is that pubs are required to take details of everyone (via the app or other means), not just the person who books the table. If it makes it more difficult for serial adulterous men to be with their mistresses then so much the better, even though the reason to assist with tracing people should there be cases of Covid 19.

There were women on here last year saying that they always give false details. I can't imagine that it would be beyond
an adulterous man to do the same thing.

@LudoBear

Its quite upsetting to see people saying negative things about the OP having no friends. Do people really not understand that not everybody needs or wants friends or finds it difficult to make friends? I find it very very difficult to make and keep friends due to adhd. Literally the only person I spend any decent time with is my mum. I have a brother and niece who I see weekly for 5 mins as I drive niece between her parents houses. I speak to a couple of neighbours when I see them. Other than that, nobody. Unemployed.

I agree with all of this.

We have our own reasons for not having friends and family - variously MH stuff, autism, lack of confidence/trust following traumatic past relationships, me not working (health reasons) so not meeting people via work, death of family members, NC with others, moving around a lot when DD was little, and so on. There are so many reasons why people become isolated. We've adapted to it and it's ok for us, it's just our life. It's not like we don't interact with others at all, we just don't have friendships.

Calling our situation 'disturbing' is a bit much, as is the disbelief that there are people who don't have wide social/family circles (or indeed any, wide or not). It happens, we're not that unusual and it's not weird.