Mike Mitchell wrote in message . ..

frightened me away. So I'm asking the good, faithful uk.diy crowd what
is the absolute cheapest phone/package I can buy/rent which (a) allows
me to receive incoming calls from landline phones or mobile phones and
(b) can make call to BT landline phones?

If you do want to make outgoing calls it does depend on what time of
day you want to make them, and how many minutes per day/month you will
be calling for (per minute rate varies greatly due to both of those).

It can be done very cheaply if you don't want to make many calls - I
bought a serviceable phone on ebay recently for 1.70 GBP, to use with
a pay-as-you-go SIM card which originally cost me a fiver I think;
that gives me calls to BT at 10p a minute I think (but have never
actually credited the SIM card since buying it, as the phone - a spare
- is used so infrequently!)

(The phone has only a black-and-white screen, no trendy case, doesn't
take pictures, and earns ridicule from my daughter, or anybody else's.
But it does make phone calls rather well...)

David