‘We used to ring and ask for the Milky Bar Kid’: your memories of phone boxes
|
Version 0 of 1. Now that we’re more connected than ever (93% of UK adults now have a mobile phone), old forms of communication lose their usefulness and dwindle in existence. The iconic red telephone boxes may be a much-loved symbol of Britain, but with hugely diminished public use, thousands have been sold, repurposed or removed from towns and cities up and down the country. For many, they now seem like a strangely distant memory. Last month, performance group Permanently Visible transformed a phone box in London into an interactive installation which collected people’s memories and stories of red phone boxes (see their video at the end of the piece). We asked you to share your own stories, experiences and memories – and got some fantastic responses. From sustaining long-distance relationships in Liverpool and Brighton to the joys of dial-a-disc in Doncaster, here are some of the highlights. London, UK In the late seventies my girlfriend (now wife) and I were at different universities across London so every evening at 7.30 we’d go to the box at the end of the road and ring each other hoping they weren’t occupied at either end. The deal was we’d keep trying for half an hour before going home. Most nights it worked so we got to speak to each other every day. We kept it up for two years before we got married. It was fun having something to look forward to every evening even though most of our friends thought we were nuts! (OlderTom) I used to visit London during the 1990s when I lived in Denmark and had instructions to collect the sex worker cards for a group at Copenhagen University who were using them for historical/sociological research. Apparently these cards first made their appearance in the early part of the 20th century, not just in London, but in cities all across Europe. (Ieuan) They were so solid. Required a push to exit. So difficult to explain the feeling of pushing button A to speak. The heat CERTHLUNK of coin falling was the opening verse to a chat. But not so hard to explain the sense of disappointment at pressing button B to get your money back because no one was home. For some reason, and I know it is not true but I associate with being in a phone box with only dark and stormy nights. Hard to believe that people actually smoked in them (I was guilty too!) Sent via Guardian Witness By fourthplinth 29 January 2016, 14:27 Hello, is it me you're looking for ♬♬ Reverse the charges - saved me on many an escapade. This was taken at the Royal Academy, London Sent via Guardian Witness By Tremerryn 30 January 2016, 11:46 Romantic Rendezvous This telephone box is at the foot of Richmond Bridge. In 1962, when I was 15 years old, I used it many times to telephone my first boyfriend, who lived nearby. He would then come a meet me. When I pass it today it brings back happy memories of my youth. Sent via Guardian Witness By VernaEvans 29 January 2016, 17:21 Manchester, UK In the early ‘90s I was living in a shared rented house in Manchester. Outside our house in front of our lounge window was a red phone box. We gave the number out to friends as our own, and could hear it ringing from inside the house. When it rang one of us would go out and answer it – probably 5-10 times per night. It was a great public facility. (nabanga) Nottingham, UK I remember queues! Living in Forest Fields, Nottingham (during the ‘80s) was like living in a student city complete with massive bus-like queues that spread out along terraced houses to use one of the two kiosks that lay north of the suburb and just to make that Sunday morning phone call home! (kevinfromthebook) Brighton, UK The phone box was a very important part of my life in the mid 1990s, when I lived in Brighton, and my boyfriend lived in New York, and as a student, I didn’t have such a thing as a land line. I would get up in the middle of the night, buy as high denomination a phone card as I could afford from the all night grade, and spend it all on a transatlantic phone call! (Laura A) Liverpool, UK I was a student in Liverpool in the 1970s. My girlfriend (now my wife) studied in Cardiff. If we were lucky, I would find a faulty phone box which stayed connected indefinitely for a single 10p piece; the conversation only terminated when we ran out of things to say, or her friends sent out a search party for her. ‘Our’ song? ELO’s ‘Telephone Line’. Still is. (Peter Brown) Belfast, UK The red phone box on the corner was our phone. Growing up in Belfast in the ‘60s and ‘70s we didn’t have a home phone – instead we used the phone box on the corner of the street. We even gave out the number to people, and relied on hearing it ring or someone else answering and coming to get us. (TrevorPake) Doncaster, UK @guardiancities I remember heading for the phone box on a Friday evening with a couple of mates to hear the latest 'dial a disc' Edinburgh, UK My home is my telephone box ... I find it remarkable that there are two telephone boxes in front of Edinburgh Castle. Maybe one for right-handers and one for left-handers? Sent via Guardian Witness By tnerowski 1 February 2016, 18:00 Eccles, UK We came to England as a family in the period ‘61 to ‘68. Like many households we did not have a phone til ‘72. Not many of our fellow immigrants had a phone at home so we would use a phone box at the top of our street on Barton Lane to keep in touch. My memories of using that red box revolves around phoning my secondary school to get my O-level results and more importantly phoning Hope Hospital using the old penny to find out the birth of my nephew Saeed. He is the first of the UK-born of my UK clan. We now are many. (aahafezi) Birmingham, UK December 1951. I’m one of six freshmen at Brummagem who came from the same grammar school and are sharing digs (on Balsall Heath Road). It’s decided we’ll have a Christmas party; we’ll all bring our girlfriends; I don’t have a girlfriend. The other five find that unacceptable; I have the phone number of one girl in honours English – Chris, Rod, Dave, Pete and Phil escort me to the phone box opposite the Earl Grey and they won’t let me out until I’ve persuaded Pat Clunan to be my guest! Unforgettable! Do you read the Guardian, Pat? (brantwood) Gosport, UK 17 years old and I used to take over the office switchboard while the telephonist was at lunch. I had a boyfriend in the forces and he used to phone me at work from the telephone box a few minutes from the local laundromat where he did the weekly wash (this was early ‘70s). He used to phone and give me the number of the box and I would ring him back. Fortunately, no-one seemed to check the phone bill at work so I doubt it was ever noticed. Oh, the romance of it all, happy memories :-) (solentview) Cambridge, UK My first day at university I had an emotional wobble in the evening and called my dad from a phone box. He told me to read a book for a bit and go to sleep, which was great advice. Three years later I called him from the same phone box to tell him my results at the end of the degree. I hadn’t used it in between but it seemed the right thing to do. Last week I was back in Cambridge briefly and took a picture of the box; it’s now empty. (Laustic) And other stories ... A strange one, but I remember when the Yorkshire Ripper was on the loose & there was a recording of someone claiming to be him. You could call a free number & listen to the message. My schoolfriend and I would ring & listen. Bit weird, I know. The smell of wee, the always slightly damp floor, the ripped telephone directories, lifting them up as a kid and letting them slam down before being told off. Hearing the pips & forcing in the coin. Ah, the scent of nostalgia. Or is it ammonia? We used to ring directory inquiries on the way home from school and always asked for the number for the Milky Bar Kid. Simple times. During the 70s I would stop at a telephone box every morning on my way to school, armed with a matchstick to 'recover' the coins that got stuck at the change slot as it had been vandalised. I good couple of weeks of lots of penny sweets before it was repaired Must have spent hours in telephone boxes during the early/mid eighties I too remember the smell of stale cigarette smoke and the cold damp concrete floor When you dialled the number there was a second or two when you could hear the person on the other end before the beep beep beep of the pips started and you pushed your 2 pence coin in ( 5 or 10p later on ? ) You would often see a queue of people outside a phone box waiting to make their call , it always put the pressure on if you were on the phone and someone turned up outside waiting to use it There was a number you could dial to listen to a song you liked in the charts , this was before the Internet so was quite impressive Phone boxes had their own phone number so we had great fun dialling the number of the phone box opposite my mate's nan's house . We would wait until a likely looking victim was walking toward the phone box and dial the number , it had a one in five success rate of someone hearing the phone box ringing , pausing , looking around ( don't know why they always did this ?) and stepping into the phone box , lifting the receiver and gingerly saying "...hello ...? " It was then that one of us would begin our 1983 version of fonejacker , one of our favourites being " oh hello is that the VD clinic ?" whilst the rest of us tried to stifle our laughter , or the classic where Gary would do his Sir Lenny Henry impression saying " ooooookkkkkkkaaayyyyyy " ( you had to be around at the time ) Boy teaches girl how to cheat the Red Phone Box. As a pubescent teenage boy in the early 60's I had reason to regret teaching a girl of similar age how to "tap out" a number from a red phone box and avoid the call charge. I then, rather foolishly - or perhaps hopefully, divulged my home number (access to a private home phone being something of a rarity on a council estate at that time). One can imagine my acute embarrassment as a young male who attended a single sex school, when my home phone barely stopped ringing with teasing calls from the previously instructed young lady for the next few weeks.. Sent via Guardian Witness By ivorkins 29 January 2016, 22:36 Back in the 1970's You could dial first and then push in ur 2p. I never had any change and needed a lift. My parents knew the routine, I'd dial and you could get a second or two to shout down the line "Pick me up" Ah how I miss the days of a simple life where no one knew where I was and I could get away with anything as long as I was in the door by 10pm! Sent via Guardian Witness By Louise Griffiths 29 January 2016, 22:19 |