Mobile phones – a must or a menace? You have your say

Moblie phones – it seems you can't escape them, wherever you go.

They are one of the fastest growth markets today, and consider them a must or a menace, whatever your feelings, they are here to stay.

They are available in all colours at varying prices, and can be bought as cheaply as £39 from some supermarkets. In order of popularity the four licensed operators are Vodaphone, BT Cellnet, Orange and One to One, the latter having been joined by a new Virgin brand mobile launched on Monday.

Apparently 22 per cent of us in the UK, from 12 up to 90, actually own one, which for once puts us only 3 per cent behind the Americans, but the Scandinavians are way ahead on 58 per cent. In Liskeard's Pike Street The Communication Centre was opened by Stephen King last October, and he says he is getting busier all the time. Different people lead individual lifestyles and we can advise a mobile phone for each one' he said.

Everywhere is buzzing with that familiar bleep of the mobile, and Liskeard was no exception this week when we asked various people for their views.

Busy rep Kathryn Williams from Menheniot hurriedly explained that she is on the go all day from 7am until 6pm or beyond. 'I have to keep in touch all the time, I cannot do without one' she said, as she hurried away with her phone pressed to her ear.

For youngsters it is becoming a 'cool accessory' to rival designer clothes, but for some it is also a must. Waiting for a bus on The Parade, young Jess Wilson aged 14, said her mum suggested she should have one as it actually made the phone bills cheaper. And of course busy teenagers these days find it much easier to contact home base if they have been held up in their increasingly busy social lives.

Alan Fricker who was enjoying a 'quiet' pint and a read of the paper at Finton O'Malley's in Dean Street, said his 17 year old daughter Bonnie had one. 'It's a convenience thing, her friends are always ringing' he said, 'but I can't get the thing to work'. He also was not very impressed with them. 'Sometimes you can get half a dozen going off at once in a crowded pub, and you don't know which one is which' he laughed.

Local mum Pam Andrew said she found them a big nuisance in the social environment. 'Everywhere you go mobile phones are ringing away in the background, even in the supermarket' she said. Seventy seven year old Tom Mitchellsen agreed and said they spoiled person to person conversation. 'I can't understand why we want all this sort of thing' he said.

Tessa Coton and Donna Hicks said as active mums they used them all the time, but their own Mum Beverley Hicks didn't agree and said she used one once and it made her ear go red.

Margaret Lock of Taylors Motors said it was very dangerous to serve fuel if people were using phones on the forecourt as they emit electricity when they transmit and a spark could possibly ignite. But from a normal point of view she said they were a sign of the times and the garage was very busy selling phone cards for the popular 'pay as you phone' idea.

Hospital

Up at Passmore Edwards Hospital Dr Jonathon Ussher said that so far it was all theory and there was no serious evidence available to suggest mobile phones damaged health as recently suggested.

However he said they interfered with hospital machinery so people were asked not to use them in the building. But he said they were used along with radios and bleeps as the third form of communication by Kernow Docs to ensure they could always be contacted. Radiographer Mrs J Blayney said she was left amazed when a patient actually answered a mobile in the middle of having his leg x-rayed. Sister Carol Conn and Staff Nurse Val Pound complained they were very intrusive in private life but said they were invaluable for emergency use only.

But the most avid fan was taxi driver and Liskeard bandmaster Don Howlett, who said he found his phone so useful he was closing his office and running his business by mobile only.

'I wouldn't be without mine now' he said.

So love them or hate them, they have simply become just another fact of life.