Mobile phone exhibit honours bricks and top tech

Julia Twomlow and Charlotte Todd at PK Porthcurno Museum of Global Communications

An exhibition in Cornwall charting the development of the mobile phone is being extended into next year due to its popularity.

PK Porthcurno Museum of Global Communications said there were more than 70 digital devices on display at its Going Mobile exhibition.

The exhibition draws from the Mobile Phone Museum's collection of more than 2,700 unique devices - featuring the early "brick phones" of the 1980s to the latest smartphones.

It is the first time items from the collection have gone on public display.

Mobile phones of all shapes, colours and sizes are on display in west Cornwall

Porthcurno also plays an important role in communications history as the place where the first international telegraph cable was brought ashore 150 years ago, connecting Britain to India and later to other parts of the British Empire.

Julia Twomlow, the creative director and chief executive at the museum, said the display had brought back memories of getting her first Blackberry.

"I would have been in one of my early management roles and I felt like I had really arrived," she said.

"I had this amazing bit of technology and I just kind of felt important."

The colourful display includes flip phones, sliders and clamshell designs

Charlotte Todd, the head of collections and engagement at PK Porthcurno, said the display had been striking a real chord with visitors.

She said: "The first thing when anyone walks in, you can hear them instantly say, 'There's my first mobile phone!'

"Then they carry on looking and say, 'Oh, I remember that one... and my friend had that one'."

The Going Mobile exhibition was extended until March 2025.