https://www.theguardian.com/culture/202 ... -courtauldA gold telephone saved from a skip has returned to the art deco bedroom for which it was commissioned eight decades ago by the socialite Virginia Courtauld.
English Heritage on Friday announced that it had been given a telephone that spoke volumes about the glamorous, over-the-top lifestyle of the inhabitants of Eltham Palace in the Royal Borough of Greenwich, south London.
Courtauld and her husband, Stephen, were a millionaire couple who, in 1933, alighted on a medieval palace in Eltham and saw it as the perfect doer-upper that was both semi-rural and in easy reach of central London.
I suppose the so called landline telephone will soon go the way of the dodo, much like middle aged fossils like me. One of my younger colleagues was teasing me about the fact that I had an old style telephone at all in this era of fashionable "tech" must haves such as iPhones and the latest Android wonder. Given this prejudice I give full credit to the ex RAEC member who "saw gold in them thar phones" and had the nous to save this heirloom for posterity!
The Courtaulds were an interesting family too!
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_ ... collector)