Who made the first mobile phone call in the UK?

It was the start of a new year. A young man among the revellers as Big Ben chimed midnight dialled home on his mobile to wish his father a Happy New Year. Nowadays we would hardly think that worthy of mention - but the year in question was 1985, and the young man was 24 year old Michael Harrison, the son of Sir Ernest Harrison, who happened to be the chairman of Vodafone! The phone in question was a Nokia, and technically known as the Mobira Talkman.

Vodafone's reign as sole provider of mobile telephony services in the UK was to prove brief, as only 10 days later, BT Cellnet (which evolved into O2) presented their phone to the country with considerably more fanfare. They enlisted the help of the popular comedian, Ernie Wise (half of the iconic duo, Morecambe and Wise) to publicise their product, and this has given rise to the widely-spread, but erroneous belief that "Little Ern", as he was nicknamed, made the UK's first mobile phone call.

The success of the new technology was by no means a certainty, as both, the sets and the calls made both on and to them were horrendously expensive, not to mention the inconvenience of carrying an object like a brick around. But now it is more or less impossible to imagine life without them!