When I was a Samaritan a lot of calls would come from phone boxes. The ‘house phone’ in the hallway offered no privacy, especially for people who were experiencing domestic abuse. We would take the phone number of the call-box, so that, if they ran out of coins, we would be able to phone them back.
Since then, of course, with the ubiquity of mobile phones, the red telephone boxes have been disappearing (or taking on other roles: library, museum or somewhere to install a defibrillator). I’m reading in today's Guardian that, under plans drawn up by Ofcom, about 5,000 public phone boxes around the UK will be protected from closure. They will remain in locations "with poor mobile coverage, high accident or suicide rates, or higher-than-average use".
Not sure what the future holds for this particular phone box, which seems to have escaped into the wild…
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