I have an old fashioned reconditioned 1960's rotary phone from the UK, which I purchased from portabello road with a modern UK phone jack. I have just come to live in Canada and I put an adapter (from maplin) on the phone before plugging it in in my apartment in Canada. The phone has a dial tone, and I can speak and hear through it, however the phone doesn't actually ring.

Can anyone tell me why this is, and how I can fix it.
Many thanks.

In the UK, a ring capacitor is built into the main BT telephone point and, although most new UK phones don't need that capacitor, older ones do in order to ring.

It sounds like you have bought a £5.99 Maplin RZ79L adaptor which does not have the necessary ring capacitor instead of their £6.99 VD36P adapator - which does.

OTOH, £6.99 is a bit expensive. Try one of these (£3.47) instead: http://www.homestead.co.uk/productca...tegoryid=54972

I did get the more expensive adapter from maplin.
I will purchase the other one you recommended, but I am not helpful. Any other words of wisdom would be greatly appreciated.

I have my fingers crossed for you.