Designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott in 1924, the first red phone box appeared on Britain’s streets two years later. The design went from K1 (Kiosk 1) to K8 (Kiosk 8) and was finally replaced by the KX. The K6, which was designed in 1935, was designed to commemorate the Silver Jubilee of George V. It was consequently sometimes known as the “Jubilee” kiosk. It went into production in 1936. The K6 was the first red telephone kiosk to be extensively used outside London, and many thousands were deployed in virtually every town and city, replacing most of the existing kiosks and establishing thousands of new sites. In 1935 there had been 19,000 public telephones in the UK: by 1940, thanks to the K6, there were 35,000.
Public telephones were an essential part of life until relatively recently when mobile phones arrived on the scene. When I was a child most homes didn’t have a phone in the house. Even if you did, once you were away from home the red phone boxes were plentiful. The photograph below is what the interiors of phone boxes were like when I was growing up. A local call cost 4d – four old pence – and took four penny coins. When your call had been put through you posted your four coins into the slot and pressed button A when it was answered. If it wasn’t answered (no answering system in those days!) you pressed Button B and got your coins back. There was a shelf in the kiosk which held a telephone directory. When I was in my teens and old enough to go out with friends in the evening at a weekend, my dad always made sure I had four penny coins with me in case I needed to call home for a lift or some other reason.
The old 1d (one penny) coin which was enormous compared to today’s coins.
Although their number and use has declined in recent years, many of them have already been repurposed by communities. Through the ‘adoption scheme’, for just £1, more than 5,000 communities have turned our iconic red phone boxes into something that brings value and enjoyment to local people – from libraries, to food banks, and defibrillators.
Some communities have adopted kiosks as libraries or book exchanges.
Many kiosks now serve as defibrillators.
The following three are are pictures of phone boxes not far from me which are used as mini art galleries and museums with exhibitions changed regularly.
A picture of a so-called ‘phone box graveyard’.
The KX which replaced the traditional red kiosk. Even these are few and far between now.
As always, credit to Wikipedia and Google Images. I make every effort to avoid infringing copyright but if anyone objects to the use of any image or info in my posts, contact me and it will be removed.
Childhood Memories of growing up in the 1950s and 1960s. 
An area would have had to be posh for only ‘many’ homes not to have had a phone. It was ‘most’ until *at least* the late 60s.
It could be quite lucrative to go into phone boxes to press button B and collect any money left behind!
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You’re right. I need to alter the wording.
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We did the same thing for spare change in the US.
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🙂
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I like the “then and now” slant in this article and love the photos, too.
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Thank you!! 😊
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I like your phone boxes much better than the ones we had. I haven’t seen a public phone in years, except in an antique store.
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I think I’ve only seen them recently in big railway stations.
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I haven’t seen any of the re-purposed kiosks but it sounds like a great idea.
Have they been subject to vandalism? I recall many of the old ones were.
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Yes, the part of the story I missed out is the years when they smelled of urine inside and had the glass smashed. I think the repurposed ones are mostly in small towns and villages where there are fewer vandals.
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I
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I wonder whether these new, re-purposed kiosks suffer from vandalism. I recall the old ones did, in certain locations.
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It’s great that many of these old phone boxes have been repurposed.
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When I was a student in 1971 I shared a house in Tottenham with a phone box outside. As there wasn’t a telephone in the house we used it as our own phone by giving out the number to friends and family and rushing outside to answer it when they rang.
Fantastic idea, life was so simple in those days.
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Brilliant!
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I returned to the U.K. as an adult for a holiday in the late 1970’s, and think some kind of non-red K model was fairly prevalent then. I remember the pips or beeps and frantically needing to feed the phone with unfamiliar additional coins to keep the call going. By that time, of course, it was no longer “new money”, but very different from the coins that I remember of my childhood. Love to see the phone boxes being repurposed!
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Thanks for commenting! Yes, the repurposing of the kiosks is a brilliant idea.
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Isn’t that the wrong picture of pennies? You’re showing 1p coins from the 1970’s. Shouldn’t you be showing a picture of the old, huge 1d coins?
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Apologies for the oversight. Will correct.
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I love the re-purposed kiosks – such fun ideas that really add value to the community!
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We lived on Ecclesfield Rd,bottom of Shiregreen Estate and used red box where Papermill Rd shops were. A time had to be pre -arranged, say at school or work if a friend needed to phone.
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I remember doing that!
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Those days were the best when we didn’t need much money to enjoy our childhood. Our house was 143 Ecclesfield Road at the bottom of Shiregreen Estate. Wonderful views across acres of countryside including, in season, wheatfields to the Basket bridge situated over the main railway line. As children we could look down at steam trains. Over this bridge another railway (which I think carried coal from the pit at Smithywood.Through the gate were stone built cottages with Helliwell and Silcocks farms.
next episode tomorrow
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I grew up in Wales but when I was in my early twenties I too lived in Sheffield. My mum was very ill for a while and every evening at 9pm, when I knew my dad would have got home from the hospital, I walked to the phone box from my rented flat and rang home to see if there was any change. Weird to think that now we can all be contacted at any time!
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