WHEN IS A PHONE BOX not a phone box?
When it’s been repurposized into a cute, bright red, defibrillating, err… shed! What a marvellous initiative to have taken: well done whoever had the idea, my heart goes out to you.
I used to worry about the fate of our iconic telephone booths, redolent of another era now. I’m even drinking from a London mug with one on as I type (see photo below for proof).
Strangely enough, my little town in the far suburbs of Paris has a genuine English (or British?) phone box parked right in front of it. It’s because we’re paired with an English town, Rotherfield, in East Sussex, as well as Vicovaro to the east of Rome but they don’t have red phone boxes, so we won’t worry about them.
And there I was thinking at first that they’d installed it in honour of my arrival in their modest hamlet. Silly me!
This splendid specimen is to be found somewhere along the road between Keswick and Cockermouth; I can’t be more precise than that, I’m afraid. A lake may have been involved at some point.
I was on the way back from the Ravenglass & Eskdale Steam Railway, when I spotted this idyllic scene from the top of a double-decker bus.
It’s often this sort of thing that makes me nostalgic for the British way of life, having absconded to the land of wine and cheese many moons ago. All the things you’ll find on the side of a typical tourist mug do it for me: red phone boxes (of course) but also red pillar boxes, red double-decker buses, Big Ben, black cabs, Beefeaters and Royal Guards, Tower Bridge… The Queen; ahh… The Queen.
That’s not to say that I don’t like your average Brit – I do, in moderation – it’s just that touristy and foody things seem more… constant. I had a great bag of chips when I was waiting for the bus in Workington. No big deal, you might think. And yet we don’t have that in France, unless you go to some silly British concept bar or something.
This was your real greasy Joe’s, grimy salt shakers and vinegar bottles sitting on the counter to help yourself and there’s nothing like it!
Don’t get me started on Crunchies and Mint Aeros or we’ll be here all night. That’ll be for another Lakeland Chronicle, maybe from the top of a mountain next time.
The Laggard of Lakeland 
(Lakeland Chronicles No.9)
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Wainwright Log: 2 of 214 Fells Felled / 0 Books Bashed / Visit Log
