Phone is an old bakelite gadget with 3 wires that would have been hardwired
into a junction box.
Can this be connected to a more modern plug in BT socket and if so ~ how?

yes, same way as a new phone. Getting old cloth wire into an RJ45 is I
assume impossible, so a modern plug with a short stub of wire is
connected to the cloth cord.


Problem with older phones is the bells are low impedance with effectively
a REN of several and will likely stop any others in the house ringing. But
there are ways round this.

This is an often misunderstood issue. REN of most old mechanical bell
phones is 4. Phone exchanges are designed to guarantee all lines will
power a total REN of 4. In practice most will power rather more, as
the wire from the exchange's resistance is usually well below the
limit, hence one old phone plus a couple of modern is not normally a
problem, though it can be occasionally.


BUT EVERYONE ON UK.TELECOM.BRODBAND SWERARS BLIND MODERN PHONES DON'T
USE THE BELL WIRE ANYWAY...

Most have built in caps and don't, but some do. Connection
configurable phones can be connected up pretty much any way, and can
be reconfigured any way. These configurables were designed to be
usable as bugs too, phones were a reliable low cost way to bug people,
and an engineer call to rewire the phone connection didn't arouse
suspicion. So you might one day find a phone so wired, with mic across
the line when on hook.


To the OP: Make sure you connect 2x 1N4001 or similar diodes in
inverse parallel across the receiver (red/green in the handset cord on
most GPO 300/700 series phones) to prevent acoustic shock from loose
connections or dud dial offnormal contacts.. very likely in a phone of
this age, as it can really hurt, and even cause hearing damage.
Originally this would have been a metal rectifier with a lower forward
voltage, but silicon diodes at 0.5-0.6v will still take the edge off
the clicks and pops.

Why do you need diodes when there is already a metal diode stack in
there doing this?


Finally if you dont like dialling the long modern numbers, you can use
a handheld thingy to tone dial. Dials were fine in the days of 3
figure numbers!


NT