We’re back to our regularly scheduled jaunts around Dumfries and Galloway, where Mum and Dad continued to find a healthy number of phone boxes after getting back from Shetland. This week’s example comes from Haugh of Urr.
Red phone box, Main Street, Haugh of Urr, 29th August 2019.
Since the Google Street View car visited the area (which was probably around 2009 judging by their usual dates for rural Scotland), the phone box has had its ‘Telephone’ signs redone in a nice gold and black scheme. I’m not usually a fan of meddling with the classic phone box design, but it does look quite nice.
Bressay parkrun, which Geth and I did while in Shetland last summer, is the only parkrun course I’ve run so far that has red phone boxes along the route (Highbury Fields parkrun has a couple very close by, but not quite en route). Bressay has two of them – it’s not quite beating the London Marathon’s phone box haul, but it’s still fairly impressive! Here’s the first one we photographed, which is on Gunnista Road close to the parkrun finish line.
Red phone box, Gunnista Road, Bressay, 10th August 2019.
It’s interesting to compare the Google Street View image (which is probably about a decade old – the Google cars don’t visit rural Scotland very often!) with the photo from this summer. The paint on the phone box needs a touch-up, and the nearby bench has been painted red and moved to sit next to the phone box.
What’s even more interesting, however, is comparing both images with this photo from the family archives, taken in July 1991:
Here’s Mum dragging a four-year-old Malcolm into Bixter Post Office. That bench was around back then too!
The phone box was a lot more well-kept twenty-eight years ago. I suppose it was probably seeing a lot more use!
This is another one where the ‘Telephone’ sign has been strangely blurred out by Google Street View – I’m guessing their software is misidentifying it as a car licence plate.
The box is surviving well, if a little patchy and overgrown!
This is a phone box I walked past a lot of times while in Shetland this summer. It sits nicely at the south end of Commercial Street in Lerwick, just before you get to the shops.
Red phone box, Commercial Street, Lerwick, 6th August 2019.
This is another phone box from Lancashire that Anne sent me. She tells me she used to use this one in the 1950s, so I think it’s nice that it’s still standing!
Red phone box, Church Road, Rainford, 18th July 2019.
This one seems to be quite well maintained. (This article mentions a phone box in Rainford that’s been turned into a defibrillator box, but I’m not sure if it’s the same one or not!)
