Posted on: 23rd August 2022, by Magrathea
The Magratheans are known for being community spirited and enjoying a challenge, and so it was no surprise to me that what began here as “the phone box challenge” among a couple of the team suddenly grew legs and started involving the whole company.
On hearing that Ofcom had once again been consulting about the decommissioning of public telephone boxes, a flurry of nostalgia hit and the air was rend with stories of phone boxes in days gone by. There were tales of 10p pieces carried in shoes on nights out for a taxi call home, an SOS call for a broken down Austin Allegra, lovelorn waits outside a phone box for a return call from a prospective suitor and even a lost dog reunited with his owner.
Telephone boxes have been a feature of the British landscape, both city and rural, since 1921 with the iconic and well-loved red telephone boxes having been around since 1935.
There are no surprises as to why the use of public telephone boxes have fallen over the years – with the majority of us carrying a tiny computer in our pocket, many times more powerful than those that put man on the moon that are sometimes even capable of facilitating a phone call, who would need to go out in the cold to use a phone box now?
Maybe it could be argued that the actual surprise is how many calls are still made from phone boxes! According to Ofcom, calls levels have dropped from around 800m minutes a year in 2002 to just 4 million minutes in 2021/22, but that is still an impressive figure – 4 million minutes a year! Perhaps there is life in the old technology yet and not just as a very worthwhile container for a community defibrillator or a paperback library.
Back to the decommissioning consultation, some of the factors Ofcom set out that would prohibit an operator from removing a public telephone box are where it is in an area that has no coverage from any of the 4 mobile networks or is in an accident blackspot. Or, and here is the one that piqued the Magrathean’s interest, has had 52 or more calls made from it in the last 12 months.
Well if that is all that is needed to keep the great British phone box in our cities, towns and villages – let’s get on the case!
We have been looking out for phone boxes, making phone calls to eachother and taking photos of ourselves using them whenever we have got the chance and would like to invite you to do the same! Just take a picture of yourself in the phone box – preferably making a call – and tweet it using #fondnessforphoneboxes with a note of your location. We would love to see how many working phone boxes we can find across the UK and for you to all be a part of that!