No signal: The mobile phone refuseniks

The luddite: Christopher Hirst, writer

Using a mobile phone strikes me as being a little bit like making coffee: if you're out and about and fancy an espresso, you go into a coffee shop you don't cart around a cappuccino maker with you. There was a time, not too long ago, when we had a system that meant you didn't have to remember to take a phone with you everywhere you went into a phone box and paid your 20p.

I did get a mobile phone about two years ago, but never used it and then very quickly lost it. I think it probably ended up in a drawer somewhere, lost in that terrible whirlpool of things in cupboards which disappear. I just couldn't see the point. I think if you've got children to keep track of, then it's essential, but I work from home working at the "Apple face" and am at the end of my landline phone.

Last week, my wife and I were in different part of the Chelsea Flower Show, so it would have been nice to have one then. But it's yet another thing to learn how to use and, ultimately, lose. We had some people for dinner on Saturday and one of them left her mobile behind, so we had to trail off to deliver it to her the next day.

I also find myself getting marginally irritated by mobile phones, much as I try not to be. People become obsessed with looking at them and fiddling with them. It's all right if you're a teenager, but there's something pathetic about adults checking their mobiles all the time and texting. People get equally irritated by my failure to use one. If you're supposed to be meeting someone, they will ask for your mobile. They're completely flummoxed when you say you haven't got one, as if it's the end of the world. The thing is, you're either there or you're not it makes no difference if you can be contacted or not.

I suppose there's an element of Luddism behind my attitude. It's not as if I crack away at the typewriter or anything I've got a computer but I'm only technological within defined limits. I don't understand the male obsession with gadgets. A good book that's what you need.

The peace-lover: Brian Sewell, art critic

Mobile phones are one of those things nobody ever knew they needed until somebody invented them. Many people have tried to persuade me to get one, but I have always resisted. I find the way they interrupt lunch or a discussion extremely irritating. It's bad enough when it's in the presence of a landline, but when you're out in the street or having lunch, or just sitting on a bench in the park, and the telephone rings, it's the end of peace and quiet. I would go so far as to say it is the end of civilisation.

My friends know me well enough that, if their phone rings, I will give them 10 seconds before I walk away. That is more than enough time for people to ask for somebody to call them back. Too often, they don't and I am there, a human being not a voice being bounced off satellites and stars and goodness know what waiting for them to finish. No no, it's totally uncivilised.

People have terrible trouble getting through to me because I don't have a computer, either. But they are incredibly stupid. They go to endless lengths to find me on the internet and they can't. So they leave messages with my employer but only leave their email address, knowing I don't have a computer. They don't think to leave a telephone number or an address to which I can reply.

There is also the possibility that a mobile phone could be the end of me. I have a heart condition that requires a pacemaker, and one of the instructions that comes with it is not to use a mobile phone or other things that produce a signal. I went to a Japanese theatrical performance at Sadler's Wells, where, in order to understand it, one had to use a translating gadget. When I switched it on, it completely wrecked the rhythm of my pacemaker. I almost lost consciousness and thought I might die, before I realised it was this machine and switched it off. Two minutes later, everything had recovered.

I think it would be useful to have a mobile phone if one were to break down and need to ring the AA. I was involved in a car accident not very long ago and a witness kindly handed me a mobile phone, but I had no idea how to make it work. I had to give it back.

The free spirit: Gabrielle Collard, web producer

I had a mobile phone for 15 years and really needed it when I started out as a freelance web designer. Then I went travelling for seven months and gave my phone to a friend. I didn't miss it at all, and when I came home I didn't think about getting one for a while. In the end, I decided I really didn't need one. I didn't think it was at all odd until other people started expressing their fears, which surprised me. "What if this happened or that happened?" they would say, but I can't think of any occasion where I've had a problem. I'm sure if my car broke down I could stop someone and ask them to phone for help. There are always other people around, and what we forget is that, on the whole, people are nice. It's also easy living in London because there are phone boxes if you really need one.

There are lots of good things about not having a mobile. It's another thing to clutter up your life that I don't need. I don't have to remember to charge it or take it with me I often used to forget it and I don't have to worry about it ringing at awkward times. It's liberating; sometimes it felt like having an umbilical cord you couldn't cut. If I went back to being freelance or became a plumber or a mobile hairdresser, I'd get a mobile straight away I'm not stupid but for now I've cut the cord and really enjoy the freedom.

The hermit: Carolyn Braby, finance manager

It's pretty much unheard of among people my age not to have a mobile phone, but I'm very happy without one. It's a slippery slope. As soon as you have one, you can't manage without. Paradoxically, I also find them very antisocial. They're invasive and intrusive, and I don't like the way they make people behave.

You have so little privacy in London and what little you have is too often invaded. Where once a bus would have been silent, there are now half-a-dozen conversations going on, and conversations that were once private take place in public spaces. They are also a menace on the street, not least when you get stuck behind somebody walking extremely slowly, trying to type a text message.

My dad used to be a radio engineer and would often talk about the danger of being close to a radio signal. Where we used to keep transmitters at a safe distance, we now press them to our ears. Some studies have suggested we won't know about the long-term effects of using mobile phones for several years.

Naturally, there are occasions when you need to make a call, so I use phone boxes I think that it's only me and pimps that still do. The quality has gone downhill a bit recently they don't clean out the cards very often any more and somebody has usually urinated in them within the past 48 hours but 40p buys you a 30-minute local call, which I think is very good value. And you never have to queue.

The phonophobe: Lee Bullman, writer

I used to have a mobile, but I left it in a bar and really enjoyed not having one. By the time I'd found it, I'd told everyone I'd lost it so I stuck it in a drawer and haven't used it since. I was never a big fan anyway I'm not keen on phones of any sort. I prefer talking to people face to face. And mobiles are such a hassle. You lose them, the batteries run out all the time, or you drop it and the thing breaks. It's much easier without one.

The phone I use when I have to make calls is an antique with a dial you crank. I don't have a TV or CD player I stick to a record player but I'm not a Luddite; I have a laptop and my wife has a BlackBerry, which is annoying because it means she's always working.

People are shocked when you admit to not having a mobile, but I can't understand why. I'm nearly 40 and grew up without one without any problem. It's not that I think they're evil, but I do worry about all the crap that must be floating through the air.

I'd be lying if I said there haven't been occasions when a mobile would have been useful, but you can always borrow one. Or you can just be late. The other day I was going to be 20 minutes late to meet the missus. If I had a mobile, I could have phoned to say: "I'm going to be 20 minutes late" or, like we all would have done 20 years ago, I would just be 20 minutes late.

The stick-in-the-mud: Marcus Berkmann, quiz compiler

I've never had a mobile phone. Initially I didn't think there was any point I'm at home all the time, and if people want to contact me, here I am but it has become more than that. An element of meanness has crept in I think that even if things changed and I did need one, I would resist out of natural cussedness and stubbornness. People are constantly telling me I should learn to drive, too, and I haven't done that either there's a whole list of things I haven't done.

It's not that I am a technophobe I use email and I'm on Facebook, for God's sake. But not having a mobile phone gives me a sense of freedom and privacy I enjoy. I quite like the idea that when I'm out, I can't be contacted. A lot of people I know say they wouldn't have one if they didn't have to for work. It has become something people are obliged to have. I work for myself, and if there are going to be any advantages to doing that, I'll take as many as I can get. In some way, you could say I'm a hypocrite because I run a cricket team and ring the other players on their mobiles all the time.

It's hilarious when people make mobile phone calls on trains. Everyone else in the carriage is tutting because the caller doesn't realise how loud they are shouting. Each to their own, but I'd rather read on a train I don't want to talk to anyone.

The other thing that makes me laugh is the number of people that have a mobile, but keep it switched off or don't carry it around. What use is a mobile phone that isn't mobile?

The scatterbrain: Jilly Cooper, novelist

To be honest, I do have a mobile phone, but I can't remember ever using it. It's called an Orange or something and somebody put a photograph of one of my greyhounds on it. It sits in a box in my secretary's office. My thumbs are too big to use it, apart from anything, and we live in a place in Gloucestershire in which mobile phones don't work very well.

I had another one before my Orange that I didn't know how to answer either. I got it about eight years ago, but then everybody kept saying it was a "tank", so I got rid of it. It ought to be in a museum now, it was so enormous.

The only occasion I think it might be useful to have one is if one needed to call for help, but I can't remember ever being in that situation. I can't understand why everyone has to be tied to their mobile phones all the time. I went riding the other day and there were people on their mobiles on their horses, for goodness' sake. It's so awful.

The dinosaur: Anna Pavord, gardener

My children, with grim faces, gave me a mobile phone as a Christmas present, telling me that it is completely unacceptable for me to be charging around at night in my car in case I break down. I have never used it. I don't even know what its number is, though it's pasted on the back so that I can at least tell the AA what it is should I get into trouble.

It's plugged into the cigar lighter to keep its battery charged, but it would be a terrible shock if it were to ring one day.

People tend to think you're a dinosaur when you say you haven't got a mobile, but there are good reasons not to have one. Apart from anything else, we have very bad reception where I live. I also think they have become an excuse for laziness; people no longer make arrangements any more because mobiles mean they can do everything at the last minute. And I can't stand the way couples, who should be talking to each other, walk down the pavement side by side, talking separately into their phones. In a curious way, I think it has become a way to retreat from the world. The mobile creates a sort of bubble in which people create a world within a world. You get the same thing with children who spend their lives in their rooms playing computer games. I think it's dangerous.

I also don't like the fear of not having a mobile phone. People say you've got to have one in case something awful happens, as if life has become more dangerous than it was 100 years ago. In fact, I believe life is much safer.

Of course, all my children and grandchildren are fully mobiled up, but the thing is and this is the problem with people being constantly accessible they never pick up the phone. One of my children in particular never answers when I call, whether it's on a mobile or a landline. That's the consequence of being bombarded the entire time by people wanting to tell you things you don't want to know or don't need to know.

It drives me absolutely nuts when, in a quiet carriage on a train at half past six in the morning, some huge great fat guy with red cheeks steps in shouting into his mobile phone. I used to tap people on the shoulder and point out the "no mobiles" signs, but I would often get such a mouthful of abuse that I have stopped doing it now. Mobile phones have meant that there is practically nowhere you can go to be quiet now.

The oldie: Colin McGregor, retired vicar

I'm afraid I am extremely old, but I do have a very nice Dell laptop with an email number that I use all the time. I don't, however, have a mobile phone. Well, I do, actually it sat in my car in case of an emergency until I got rid of the car last year. I never used it and nobody knew the number. I got it three years ago, and topped it up with 10. I suppose the money's still somewhere.

I have been retired for 20 years, so there was never a problem with phones ringing during services. I do find it very irritating, when I take the train, to find several people in the carriage talking into phones. These days you walk down the road and you hear somebody talking in a loud voice and you think they're with somebody, but they're not, they're talking into a mobile phone. But that's my only gripe I can see they have their uses.