This article is reprinted with permission from the WeChat public account "Huawen Pai" (ukwutuobang)
When you think of London, what comes to mind? Is it a black taxi that runs down the street, a red double-decker bus full of tourists, or a red phone booth that stands out?
The pictures in this article are all from the WeChat public account "Huawen Pai"
Today, the former two still have great practical value in British life. However, the importance of red phone booths in people's lives has become less and less important.
The devouring of the old civilization by the new civilization has never been affectionate. With the popularity of personal telephones, the use of red telephone booths, once regarded as Britain's "cultural symbols", has dropped significantly within a few years, and some have even been thrown directly into the "cemetery" and gradually rusted.
In order to save these discarded "British symbols", Britain's largest telecommunications company British Telecom (BT) launched a campaign called "Adopt Phone Booth", where individuals or communities can "adopt" a phone booth for as long as they spend 1 pound, hoping to use the excellent imagination and execution of the British people to bring these once British business cards to life.
01
Masterpiece of the Master, Born "Noble"
Telephone Kiosk in the United Kingdom, dating back to 1920, was established by The General Post Office (GPO), or K1 (Kiosk NO.1).
But strictly speaking, the K1 is not the classic "red phone booth" we think.
Kiosk No.1
The GPO decided that the design of the K1 was not satisfactory, so they found the work of Giles Gilbert Scott, the designer who designed Liverpool Cathedral and London's Waterloo Bridge, and changed the shell of the telephone booth he designed from silver to a more striking red, which was the original "red telephone booth", also known as "Kiosk No.2" or "K2".
The GPO asked Party B Scott to continue to modify out of cost and form factor. It wasn't until Scott designed the K6 (also known as Jubilee Kiosk) to celebrate george V's Silver Jubilee that the world's most familiar "red phone booth" was finalized.
The British have always preferred red, and after the red bus, red post box, and red fire truck, the British quickly embraced the red telephone booth and made it a unique cultural symbol of Britain.
In britain's most famous "IP" Harry Potter series, the Ministry of Magic's guest entrance is an abandoned red telephone booth ↓↓↓
The film Paddington Bear, known as the London image promo, often uses a red telephone booth as a background ↓↓↓
In the Anglo-American co-production film "One Day", Anne Hathaway is on the phone in the red telephone booth, and Gu Pan Shenfei ↓↓↓
02
Once "red" for a while, but now it has been "abandoned" tragically
The number of telephone booths in the UK peaked in 2002, when 92,000 were spread across the UK, and since then the number has plummeted.
On the one hand, with the popularity of mobile phones, the demand for public telephone booths in BT Group has dropped by about 90% in the past 10 years.
On the other hand, BT was privatized in the 1980s, and in order to ensure the renewal of technology, BT subsequently replaced many red phone booths with modern phone booths with its own logo (KX100), and the K6 and some other remaining older versions of the phone booth were on the verge of extinction.
Currently, there are only 42,000 phone booths left in the UK, of which only 7,000 are classic red phone booths that are popular with tourists. Moreover, BT announced plans to remove another 20,000 phone booths by 2022.
Red phone booths, which were once "red", are now facing a situation of being "abandoned". The reason is that these phone booths not only do not make money, but also lose money, making BT overwhelmed. According to BT, the annual maintenance cost of the phone booth is as high as 5 million pounds.
These red telephone booths, which have a glorious history, are bad and broken, broken, and some even emit the smell of urine. They are not found in the metropolis of scarce land, in a small village called Carlton Miniott in the north of England, and there is even a "telephone booth cemetery", and the red telephone booth is gradually corroded by wind and rain erosion.
Carlton Miniott's Telephone Booth Cemetery
Tony Inglis, the owner of an engineering transportation company, believes that red phone booths are out of step with the times: "They're big and bulky, representing everything you don't want today."
03
Makeover and get a new lease of life
Although Inglis mouth is poisonous, as a businessman, he did not completely abandon the red telephone booth.
His company had received an order to move the phone booth off the street and auction it off, but he eventually bought hundreds of units himself and refurbished them for sale. He said it was the appeal from the public that persuaded him not to abandon the phone booth.
Search for "phone booth" in the Historic Sites of England website for 2682 results
While ingris's refurbished hundreds of phone booths were a drop in the bucket for tens of thousands of abandoned phone booths, his actions also influenced and inspired other businesses and entrepreneurs.
BT has launched a long-term plan to "adopt a red phone booth", where individuals or communities can "adopt" a phone booth for just £1. Since 2008, more than 5,800 phone booths have been adopted, and these phone booths have returned to the daily life of The British with a new look under the whimsy of the British.
This year, BT will launch another 3683 phone booth to "adopt" the public in the same way.
One of the most common uses of the newly remodeled red phone booth is to be converted into a mini library. Not long ago, British Prime Minister Aunt May donated a novel about historical murder mysteries to one of the libraries in Berkshire.
Life in England is inseparable from desserts and coffee, and the red phone booth is also an ideal place to enjoy afternoon tea ↓↓↓
The phone booth space is small, but it is enough to install an ATM ↓↓↓
If the above uses are expected, then the next phone booth style becomes wild:
In Devon, the phone booth is transformed into "the world's smallest nightclub" ↓↓↓
In West Yorkshire, the telephone booth is the smallest art gallery that can only be visited by one person at a time.↓↓↓
In London's Kingston district, the telephone booth has become a set of artworks ↓↓↓
In Upper Slaughter in the west of England, phone booths can even provide cardiac defibrillators ↓↓↓
The British people are so worried about the phone booth, in addition to its practical value, but also because the red phone booth has long been inseparable from the daily life of the British.
In 2016, The Guardian launched a topic on Twitter called #Red Phone Box, calling readers to share memories of red phone booths.
The introduction to this story is very romantic:
"What does the red phone booth mean to you?" A life-changing phone call, or just a prank? Can you avoid the cold wind, or steal a kiss? ”
British netizens responded on Twitter:
Stephen Feather recalls his first solid business idea for Easter 1968. Until July of that year, he used the red phone booth as his office. Even half a century later, he still sighs when he thinks of the red phone booth: "No matter how successful you are, the first memory will never be forgotten." ”
When seeing the red phone booths return to central London, Kieran Talor tweeted to thank the Westminster district for its efforts to preserve the phone booths as historic sites.
More British netizens expressed their nostalgia for the red phone booth and the joy of seeing it reborn:
"We are obsessed with the old world because we have been running into walls in the modern world". The British historian and broadcaster Dan Snow may have been slightly self-deprecating in saying this.
Perhaps one day, these former British symbols will eventually be difficult to avoid the fate of being dismantled, but in order to save them, the British have done everything in their power, and this is enough.
Wen Li Na