Call yer Mum!

I happened across an old fashioned Phone Box on my walk today. It was locked so I couldn’t get inside but it was good to see one of these splendid things standing tall despite the passage of time. They are largely redundant and are being removed at an unhappy speed. I certainly miss them and that’s mainly because conversations were kept private in there. You couldn’t be reached unless you wanted to be and once your money ran out, that was the end of it. No long goodbyes, just a beeping sound and then you were cut off. They had a certain odour to them and you would have to be brave if you wanted to make a long call. I often held the door open with one foot so as to receive fresh air and not pass out from the fumes. One final thing about the Phone Box was the acoustic quality of your call. There was a certain reverb to the proceedings that many people will not have experienced since the advent of the mobile phone. Let me take you back, briefly, to the ancient World of Public Telecommunications.