Hi! Coo!

Unfed for ever
These starveling cats display an
almost-gratitude...

UK question (telephone, 1960s)

So if you were making a call from a remote northern country town to London, in the late '60s: that's a trunk call, right, and would have to go through the operator? Would there be a delay, and if so would you hold the line or have the operator ring you back when the call was connected? Or am I just totally wrong? (Am trying to reconstruct this from too many indeterminate movies; I have no useful memory, as we didn't have a phone at that time.)