In the month of my birth, January 1985, two important things happened in the history of the telephone in the UK. One was Britain’s first ever mobile phone call, made in the early hours of New Year’s Day 1985. The other was the announcement that classic red phone boxes would be replaced with a new design. Looking 33 years backwards from our world of smartphone zombies, YMMV on whether either of these was a good thing.
The classic red phone box is one of my favourite aesthetic icons of 20th century Britain. I love red phone boxes and take pictures of them wherever I find them, like some kind of excitable tourist. Sad to say they are gradually becoming rarer and rarer on Britain’s streets, but lots of them are being repurposed for things like defibrillators and cash machines, so I live in hope that they won’t disappear completely.
I have lots of phone box pictures and will be sharing them on the blog soon!
Some of my favourite useful links for info about phone boxes:
- redphonebox.info, which has lots of pictures and historical information
- The Telephone Box, good for details and stats
- Red Kiosk Company, another organisation repurposing phone boxes
- The Phoney Box, which sells and rents out replica red phone boxes