I love red telephone boxes. Along with red post boxes and red double decker buses, they seem so quintessentially British to me as an American. Someday I would love to have one for my house. I'm not sure what I would do with it, but it would be really neat and a double decker bus is out of the question since it would be too tall for my garage.
Back in June 2005 while I was in London for a conference for work I ended up being on the BBC London News on the BBC1 television channel due my admiration for red telephone boxes. I love all things BBC, especially listening to the BBC World Report on the radio, so I was really excited.
On the last day of my conference the sessions ended at 1:30 pm so I decided to spend the afternoon sightseeing before meeting up with some friends at their flat for dinner. I planned ahead and brought a pair of flats and wore a t-shirt under my suit jacket so I could do a quick change and be on my way. Sometimes I am smart like that. Other times not so much. Like the day that I had off before the conference started when I decided to take a day trip to the Cotswolds and got lost walking in the countryside for a few hours resulting in terrible blisters and almost missing the last train back to London.
Anyway, back to the story at hand. One of the places I wanted to go to see that afternoon was St. Paul's Cathedral because when I was visiting in 2003 the front was undergoing restoration. On the cathedral grounds there was one of the old style red London telephone boxes so with me being me I couldn't help but take some photos.
The next thing I knew a BBC reporter, Karl Mercer, and his cameraman were asking me if I would mind if they taped me photographing the telephone box. They explained that they were doing a story about the traditional London telephone boxes for the evening news. There was a movement to reduce their numbers due to the rise in cell phone usage along with replacing some with more modern telephone boxes, however there were also people who felt they should be kept as part of the cultural heritage. The cameraman taped me taking photos from a few angles and Karl interviewed me about why I liked the traditional telephone boxes. They were really nice and even posed for a photo with me.
When I got to my friends' flat I asked if we could turn on BBC1, telling them the story of my adventure with the phone box. Sure enough, at a few minutes before seven the telephone box story aired with short clips of a variety of people they had filmed that day including the Lord Mayor and me (refered to as "Lisa from California.") I had been worried that I would come across sounding vapid on film but the story turned out well and now I can say I was on the BBC.
I figured that I couldn't end this post without mentioning the most interesting locale with a red telephone box that I have come across. This past November when I was visiting my sister on St. Thomas we spent some time in the BVI. As our boat pulled up to Marina Cay for us to have lunch, lo and behold, there was a red telephone box perched on the end of the dock. Not only is the phone still in working order, there is also a webcam focused on it so you can take a look at what is going on at the telephone box at any given time online.
Long live red telephone boxes!