Read Online 21st Century Dodos: A Collection of Endangered Objects (and Other Stuff) by Steve Stack - Free Book Online
Authors: Steve Stack
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call from a phone box.
There is also the element of privacy. If you are lucky enough to find a classic red phone box, then you will be locked within a soundproof booth of cast iron, and passers-by will struggle to hear a word you say. For this reason they remain popular with individuals of a less savoury nature who ‘need to speak to a man about a dog’, or something like that.
But phone box use is plummeting, and long gone are the days when, and some of you will remember that this did actually happen, there would be a queue outside the local public telephone, with some old bloke getting impatient with the teenager calling his girlfriend from inside and taking ages to say goodbye. Older readers will also remember the days when the phones accepted 2p, a couple of which would more than cover the cost of your call. Minimum charge is 60p nowadays. Last time I used one, it was 20p.
When most of us think of a telephone box, an image of the classic red kiosk will come to mind. The first of these was designed in 1924 by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, in response to a competition. The City of London was not keen on the concrete booths that had starting popping up around the country, and wanted something more stylish and, well, London-y. Scott’s design beat two others and became known as K2 (Kiosk 2), quickly replacing the K1, although the box that appeared on the streets was not quite as the designer expected. He had specified a steel construction with silver paint and a blue/green interior, the final kiosk was, as we know now, made of cast iron and painted a bright red.
There were many incarnations of this original design, with the K6 being the one that was used most widely outside of London, and being the version that most readers will remember calling their boyfriends or girlfriends from, or phoning a cab from while pissed, or having a sneaky wee in … while pissed.
Since the late ’80s, and the privatisation of telecommunications, the red phone boxes have been superseded by the rather dull metal and glass structures and also open booths. For a while, companies other than BT started putting boxes up, but they didn’t last long. Now even these more modern versions are on the downturn; between 2005 and 2008 total phone box usage halved. It is probably fair to speculate that it has at least halved again since then.
As it costs £700 a year to maintain a single telephone kiosk, it is understandable that their numbers are dwindling, and it is to the credit of BT that they haven’t scrapped them completely, recognising that they have to cater to the minority of people who still use them and acknowledging their social importance.
But that hasn’t stopped them from decommissioning loads of old boxes and flogging many of them off for private use. Local communities have taken over the running of some kiosks and there are old red phone boxes in use today as libraries, grocery stores, tourist information booths and, in one case, to store a defibrillator.
With two-thirds of all telephone boxes making a loss, it is inevitable that their number will decline further, but over 2,000 have been given listed status so we should still see them around for some time to come.
Dodo Rating:
Rag and Bone Men
You could consider them the first generation of recyclers. Men with a horse and cart would drive around the neighbourhood at slow speed, shouting, ‘Rag and bone!’ or some such cry, in an attempt to lure housewives out of their homes carrying unwanted scrap.
In the early days of the trade they really did collect rags and bones – the bones were sold to make bone china and the rags for paper – but in the latter half of the 20th century they came to collect any scrap metal or other items that they could sell on. They would often pay cash for items, only a few pence here and there, or offered exchanges, such as donkey stones, as they were called, for whitening doorsteps, but many people were happy using them as a way to clear out
There is also the element of privacy. If you are lucky enough to find a classic red phone box, then you will be locked within a soundproof booth of cast iron, and passers-by will struggle to hear a word you say. For this reason they remain popular with individuals of a less savoury nature who ‘need to speak to a man about a dog’, or something like that.
But phone box use is plummeting, and long gone are the days when, and some of you will remember that this did actually happen, there would be a queue outside the local public telephone, with some old bloke getting impatient with the teenager calling his girlfriend from inside and taking ages to say goodbye. Older readers will also remember the days when the phones accepted 2p, a couple of which would more than cover the cost of your call. Minimum charge is 60p nowadays. Last time I used one, it was 20p.
When most of us think of a telephone box, an image of the classic red kiosk will come to mind. The first of these was designed in 1924 by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, in response to a competition. The City of London was not keen on the concrete booths that had starting popping up around the country, and wanted something more stylish and, well, London-y. Scott’s design beat two others and became known as K2 (Kiosk 2), quickly replacing the K1, although the box that appeared on the streets was not quite as the designer expected. He had specified a steel construction with silver paint and a blue/green interior, the final kiosk was, as we know now, made of cast iron and painted a bright red.
There were many incarnations of this original design, with the K6 being the one that was used most widely outside of London, and being the version that most readers will remember calling their boyfriends or girlfriends from, or phoning a cab from while pissed, or having a sneaky wee in … while pissed.
Since the late ’80s, and the privatisation of telecommunications, the red phone boxes have been superseded by the rather dull metal and glass structures and also open booths. For a while, companies other than BT started putting boxes up, but they didn’t last long. Now even these more modern versions are on the downturn; between 2005 and 2008 total phone box usage halved. It is probably fair to speculate that it has at least halved again since then.
As it costs £700 a year to maintain a single telephone kiosk, it is understandable that their numbers are dwindling, and it is to the credit of BT that they haven’t scrapped them completely, recognising that they have to cater to the minority of people who still use them and acknowledging their social importance.
But that hasn’t stopped them from decommissioning loads of old boxes and flogging many of them off for private use. Local communities have taken over the running of some kiosks and there are old red phone boxes in use today as libraries, grocery stores, tourist information booths and, in one case, to store a defibrillator.
With two-thirds of all telephone boxes making a loss, it is inevitable that their number will decline further, but over 2,000 have been given listed status so we should still see them around for some time to come.
Dodo Rating:
Rag and Bone Men
You could consider them the first generation of recyclers. Men with a horse and cart would drive around the neighbourhood at slow speed, shouting, ‘Rag and bone!’ or some such cry, in an attempt to lure housewives out of their homes carrying unwanted scrap.
In the early days of the trade they really did collect rags and bones – the bones were sold to make bone china and the rags for paper – but in the latter half of the 20th century they came to collect any scrap metal or other items that they could sell on. They would often pay cash for items, only a few pence here and there, or offered exchanges, such as donkey stones, as they were called, for whitening doorsteps, but many people were happy using them as a way to clear out
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