British Billy sees red

  • Published
  • By British Billy
  • 48th Fighter Wing Public Affairs

In so many ways, I am a modern, street-wise cat. However, I believe it is a great shame that the honourable art of letter writing seems to have been thwarted by the modern obsession with e-mail, and public telephone boxes are abandoned in favour of the mobile phone.

Whether on a village green, street corner, shopping mall or city centre, the red telephone kiosk or letter box is a ubiquitous icon of British daily life. The U.K. boasts approximately 115,000 letter boxes, dotted throughout the land, and many are considered of historical significance and a valued part of our national heritage.

Originally painted green, letter boxes were painted red for better visibility in 1874. During World War II, the tops of some pillar boxes* were painted with gas detection paint, while their plinths were painted white to aid movement on unlit wartime streets.

Most traditional British pillar boxes produced after 1905 are made of cast iron and are cylindrical in shape. Other shapes have been used; the hexagonal Penfolds**, rectangular boxes that have not proved to be popular, and an oval shape used mainly for the large, double-aperture boxes most often seen in large cities like London. Mail may also be deposited in lamp boxes or wall boxes that serve the same purpose as pillar boxes but are attached to a post or set into a wall, and are a cheaper alternative.

My posse of rodent researchers, who scour the country hunting down information, tell me that there are ten surviving examples in the U.K. of a rather natty post box, designed by by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott in 1927, which is incorporated into a telephone kiosk, alongside two stamp vending machines. I know there's one in Warrington, Cheshire, but my quest continues for the others.

Sir Gilbert was also responsible for the design of the familiar red telephone kiosks you will often come across in the U.K., although many are now being replaced by duller modern kiosks that are more resistant to vandalism and accessible to the disabled. It is probably Sir Gilbert's K6 design you will see most often. It was designed in 1935 to coincide with the Jubilee of King George V. Sadly, the king did not live to see any such examples installed. Initially known as the 'Jubilee' Kiosk, some 70,000 examples were erected around the U.K. between 1936 and 1968. Today approximately 14,000 remain.

We certainly do seem to like the colour red here in the U.K., with our red, double-decker London buses, red telephone kiosks and letter boxes. It's such a positive, strong, courageous colour - so appropriate for our noble little nation.

However, we have always been known for our eccentricities, and if your travels take you to Kingston upon Hull, you will find a number of cream telephone boxes, with the royal crown omitted. Hull was the only area of the U.K. not under Post Office monopoly, with telephones being under the control of the Corporation of Hull. A few years ago, when the system was privatised, the new controlling company tried to remove the cream kiosks, but public outcry led to 126 of them remaining in use today. Approximately 1,000 were sold off to the general public.

The red K6s are also available for purchase, and some alternative uses have been as a shower cubicle, a coffin, an emergency shelter for unpredictable weather and a mini greenhouse.

I would love to live in a telephone box, with a suitable cat flap inserted, of course. I shall put that at the top of my birthday present list.


*A pillar box is a free-standing post box.

**Some of you may recall that, in the British cartoon series, Danger Mouse, the title character and his assistant lived in a red pillar box in London. It was by no mere coincidence that DM's sidekick was named Penfold.