please empty your brain below
The one world ones (derelict)that litter our proud streets are a disgrace.

strandman | Homepage | 01.11.06 - 7:55 a.m. | #

And don't forget that in Hull, they were never part of the GPO/BT phone network, and so did they own thing: cream phone boxes
http://www.flickr.com/q=hull+phone+box

Mark | 01.11.06 - 8:15 a.m. | #

"...a tuppenny coin..."??? No such thing.

Peter Howard | Homepage | 01.11.06 - 10:06 a.m. | #

The best way to get a free call from any of these used to be book a call with the operator, quoting a phone box as your home number. That worked with the A/B and the early slot machines. Then they put a tone on the line, so the operator could recognise a call box (ever wonder why a payphone went "beep" while you wer talking, if someone called in?) There was a period after that when you could get through for free if you tapped out the number on the handset rest, rather than using the dial. Then that stopped. But of course I would never have used any of those techniques.

Ham | Homepage | 01.11.06 - 10:54 a.m. | #

You can't talk about telephone boxes in London without mentioning David Mach's domino phonebox sculpture, Out of Order, in Kingston-upon-Thames.

quin | Homepage | 01.11.06 - 11:02 a.m. | #

Tottenham had no red phone boxes for years, then suddenly they reappeared out of nowhere in the late nineties. Suffice to say they haven't aged well in their new home.

The most profitable phoneboxes now are probably the ones from which drug deals are arranged and made - certainly the boxes next to Manor House station seem well used. In a perverse sense, I suppose they provide a service to the local economy!...

Nico | Homepage | 01.11.06 - 12:00 p.m. | #

payphones: not very interesting compared to cyclists

Anonymous | 01.11.06 - 12:12 p.m. | #

I don't know. Interestingness doesn't equate to comment level, as DG himself has argued.

quin | Homepage | 01.11.06 - 3:36 p.m. | #

You have to love the colour "Post Office Red". BR (in their day) once officially painted their trains in a colour known as "Improved Engine Green", which was actually more blue than green.

Ian | Homepage | 01.11.06 - 4:17 p.m. | #

I can also remember being in the Whitgift Centre in Croydon in about 1982, when the first fancy 'new fangled' phone kiosks were introduce - sexy silver aluminium things with no 'box' to stand in, just a phone on the wall sort of thing .. and people were QUEUEING up three deep to use it just because it was new. Whilst 50 yards away were two traditional red phone boxes being totally unusued.

Who also remember the line of payphone at Waterloo station where people used to queue as well? Also in the days before mobile phones.... Happy daze.

Ian | Homepage | 01.11.06 - 4:19 p.m. | #

Hehe I saw the button A/B thing on Goodnight Sweetheart the other day! (shhh I didn't just admit watching that!)

Kit | Homepage | 01.11.06 - 6:05 p.m. | #

Ah those new Mercury card phone boxes (the first non-BT ones outwith Hull) introduced (at Waterloo Stn before anywhere else) in the late 80s - they were quite stylish: or at least seemed so at the time.

Venichka | 01.11.06 - 6:31 p.m. | #

They seem like a good idea at the time but a housemate of mine bought one back in the seventies and it sat in the front garden for two years and killed the grass. Then the council came and took it away.

Noosa Lee | Homepage | 01.11.06 - 6:36 p.m. | #

"And the telephones on sticks will tell you
999 calls only"
Carter USM

Rob | 01.11.06 - 7:25 p.m. | #

In Kingston (upon Thames) when the red boxes were first phased out - before being re-introduced - the council spent about £30,000 on a row of them, leaning at precarious angles as a "modern art concept"
They are still there in the town centre and remarkably graffiti -free- maybe everyone does love the old red boxes!

Anonymous | 01.11.06 - 7:45 p.m. | #

Proper phoneboxes, proper post boxes, Routemaster buses - London wouldn't be London without them. Why change for changes sake? They're beautiful.

Johnny Topaz | 01.11.06 - 10:52 p.m. | #

Aren't there some black phoneboxes in London?

Sam | 04.11.06 - 6:17 p.m. | #











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