Boxes of Delight

Red telephone boxes are as much a part of the national landscape, mental and physical, as power pylons or steeples, or at least they used to be.  They used to be a ubiquitous and pleasing feature of cities, towns, villages, hamlets, crossroads and random stretches of ‘road’ in places so rural you’d wonder that Christianity had reached that far, never mind telephony.

Originating in an age when it was far from the norm to have a telephone in the home unless your surname was ‘Bell’, or you were a character in a costume drama, the original function of these architectural and technological delights was to allow people to telephone other people.  But barely had the bright red paint dried before the role of these local landmarks evolved.

The first step in the evolution of the telephone box was its emergence as a dramatic character.  A person goes into a telephone box and rings another person.  So far, so normal.  But an empty telephone box with a ringing ‘phone?  That’s the start of the sort of plot only rivalled by somebody stepping off on to a deserted railway platform to be informed by a ‘suitably’ ‘characterful’ ‘station master’ that no train has stopped here for twenty years.

As more and more homes got more and more ‘phones, the telephone box moved from being the place you went to to make a telephone call to being the place that you went to to make a private telephone call (you could tell an adulterer in times past because they always had lots of loose change), ironic considering that they were constructed out of steel…and glass, and illuminated. 

As technology advanced, telephone boxes took on roles unconnected with calls, booty or otherwise.  The normal place for displaying business cards is, of course, the newsagents’ window, but thanks to the advancement in printing technology and in particular to business card printing machines being made available in service stations and other haunts of lorry drivers and travelling salesmen, and hence by extension to their service sector, prozzers were able to create professional looking business cards cheaply and in volume, and distribute them around telephone boxes.  Telephone boxes took on something of a festive atmosphere, if your idea of festive is a business-card blizzard of smutty invitations, as the interiors of telephone boxes began to look a little like top shelves, festooned with graphic graphics.  Accordingly, a trip to a red call box could resemble a visit to a red light district.

These temples of communication also provided other sorts of relief in times of extremis.  Many a chap, decent chaps, honest chaps, the sort of chap who would shudder to relieve themselves against a tree, well, an oak, well, a listed oak, would of an evening be profoundly glad to happen across a telephone box to answer not a ringing handset but the call of nature.

There was, of course, a protocol to be observed in such cases.  Firstly, one always avoided any tramp that might have taken up residence overnight in a traditional telephone box.  (BT (Bastard Telecom) modified the design of telephone boxes in the 80s, changing them into telephone ‘kiosks’ in a move which perfectly encapsulated a shift from a public service GPO monument to humanity that would serve not only as a tool of communication but shelter from the storm, to a profit-driven monster, putting into service a plexiglazz monstrosity that had a gap all the way around the bottom, presumably to allow the elements to penetrate and so discourage overnight guests.  Or possibly to provide adequate drainage.)  The protocols, famously illustrated by a small sign illustrated by none other than Quinten Blake that used to delight, inform and repulse in equal measure, were that if one was relieving oneself in a telephone box, one always faced away from any observer(s), and always held the handset firmly and confidently gripped in the unemployed hand.  Just a chap, making a call, and if you happen to notice that a chap has his chap (or indeed his penis) in his other hand, then any shocked observer could take comfort in the certainty that urinating is just about the least offensive thing that the occupant of the telephone box can be doing in such a pose.

The telephone box has so often doubled up as a crisis WC that rumour has it that in the days when telephone boxes had telephone directories in them (a forerunner of today’s telephone box libraries, though exclusively stocked with books with lots of characters and not much plot), serious thought was given to printing the directories on soft paper, possible perforated.

The rise in the increase of mobile ‘phone ownership coincided with a decline in courtesy to others and of inhibitions about sharing private details with total strangers.  People making a telephone call no longer sought a soundproof booth but instead favoured busy public transport or hitherto quiet and peaceful spots to make their telephone calls.

So it was that the telephone box fell into disuse.

As a telephone box.

They ceased making money because even though nobody was using them, they still had to be cleaned and occasionally de-tramped.  Slowly telephone boxes started to disappear, airbrushed out of the landscape.  (Sadly, not everyone thought to check to see if mobile ‘phone coverage extended to all the sites now marked not with a proud, glittering. Illuminated, slightly pee-smelling red box, but with a square of concrete.)

Of course, if there were any justice in the world, a succession of small plaques would be sunk into the otherwise anonymous concrete squares that, like the footsteps of telephony prehysteria, now dot the land.  A small plaque to commemorate a huge event, for instance that such-and-such a person ‘phoned their mother and father to inform them they had become grandparents from this site in 1965; that Debbi Broke Up With Darren using this ‘phone box in 1984, that in the same year, Darren confirmed to Debbi’s best friend Mandy that Debbi was a right slag anyway, and did Mandy want to go to out with him? And that in 1993, a profoundly relieved Jeff profoundly relieved himself on this very site.

The ‘problem’ with traditional red telephone boxes is that they have more individual panes of glass in them than the average cathedral, and so are devilish hard to clean, even if not be-tramped.  Naturally, as soon as Bloody Terrible stopped cleansing telephone receivers and started cleansing the landscape of character, the nation revolted.  Anyone who produced rural postcards of a sheep standing by a dry stone wall next to a red telephone box realised that sheep and stone alone just don’t do it.  The middle class mobilised.  In 4x4s.

As a result, many villages have successfully held on to their red telephone boxes (usually the same places that have held on to village greens).  Of course, they may not have managed to hold on to their indigenous population or village youth that has been priced out of the place by second home buyers, but at least the centre of the village still has its crimson totem to modernity.

Now though, more than ever, we know that telephone boxes can fulfil duel functions.

Telephone boxes have, famously, become village libraries, a phenomenon that started in 1994 when a lady in Masham left three copies of Catherine Cookson on a shelf by mistake, started a national trend, and has been too embarrassed to ask for them back since.

And there are yet more modern social uses.  Because it’s not just the internet that’s slow in rural areas. Ambulance response times being what they are in the countryside, there’s been a couple of reactions.  The first is a very practical approach to dealing with any accident involving threshing machinery.  Following the screams and panicked shut down, people pack anything still twitching in frozen peas and then hey ho for the nearest hospital.  Everyone then gathers at the local pub to wait for an update on successful re-attachment.  The first time anyone mentions ‘micro-surgery’ it is the law that somebody must say ‘was it his cock that got cut off’?  Followed by ‘I don’t make the rules’.

The second reaction is the most modern incarnation.  Village defibrillator.

On the face of it, this is a great idea.  With more and more people having more and more unrealistic expectations of their ability to do stuff, like running marathons, staying upright on a bar stool or enduring another fucking day on public transport, it’s a wonder that everyone doesn’t carry around their own defibrillator, like an evacuee carrying around a box on a piece of string that he or she imagines contains a gas mask bust in fact only contains an apologetic note from their mum explaining that their mask has in fact been sold for gin.

Defibrillators are appearing in more and more places.  Like pubs.  And surely that can’t be healthy.  Naturally, if a beloved boozer keels over and pegs it half way down a pint of what the landlord laughingly refers to as his best, then this will lead not just to blokes reading about the demise thinking ‘that’s the way to go’, or indeed the regulars all doing the sort of mental calculation that would boggle Turing to determine when would be the decent time to take up residence on Fatty’s recently vacated bar stool.  It leads to a few charity nights and the proud purchase of a defibrillator for the pub.  Of course, it’s only a short jolt to think that once the locals work out that the thing is rechargeable, they can incorporate it into their evening with, in descending order of idiocy, options including: 1) answering pub quiz questions after having paddles applied to both temples and being ‘zapped’, 2) playing ‘how high can you go’ on the voltage charge, noting that some wag has written ‘Frankenstein’ on one of the settings; 3) playing ‘Jason Statham’ by trying to improvise an anti-bad guy weapon and propel other people across the room by paddling their nipples with electricity; 4) playing doctor by bellowing ‘clear’ and then zapping an unsuspecting drinker in the arse and, of course, the winner, 5) the ‘electric boogie’: suck a lime, tequila shot, lick salt off of a live paddle.

But the latest incarnation of the telephone box as a home for the village defibrillator is something else.  Especially when you consider that only people trained in the use of the defibrillator may use it.  That’s probably a good thing, the last thing you need to see is some idiot spitting on some paddles for improved connectivity and electrocuting himself.

However.  Village life is interesting.  It is easy to start an argument (I refuse to use the term feud, we’re not, as Ross Kemp remarked in ‘Ultimate Force’, Americans) in an English village.  Defibrillators are expensive kit, so presumably only accessed by trained community members, these are the people you do not want to piss off, especially if you are lardy.  So.  It’s important to keep those keymasters trained to use the defibrillator and trusted with a key to its cabinet, on side.  The last thing you need to do if you like your beer, fags and lining your arteries with cheese is to forget to return those pinking shears you borrowed off the stuck up bloke who lives in ‘the Old Rectory’ and which you secretly used to trim your toenails.

It’s right that what was once an electronically powered beating heart of the village should once again be an electronically powered beating heart restarter of the village.

As to what’s next for the village telephone box?  It’s either going to be the recharging point, take off and landing pad for the village delivery drone, or home to the village three dee printer that will print your grocery order for you using protein goo and dye.

And, of course, it’s the perfect shape to operate as the village teleport kiosk once that technology is perfected, it’s even got the dial mechanism to enter the co-ordinates.

Village people

There are many good reasons to read Dickens.  His novels are a tremendous source of fabulous names, any of which are useful as an alias during that tricky time at the start of a relationship when you don’t want to commit too much, like giving your real name, such a period usually lasting between three weeks and five years.  Ironically, given the names Dickens usually ascribed his characters, if you do find a girl who is apparently willing to hook up with you and chance going through life as ‘Mrs Fizzyclotter’, then that gal’s a keeper.
Another reason is to see the changes that have happened to England, for instance the description of a walk from the centre of London, across some fields, to reach the village of Camden.  My understanding is that there are now no fields between the centre of London and Camden now, although there are apparently a shedload of 4x4s, despite that lack of agriculture.
The march towards modernity has seen suburbs swell to encapsulate villages and it’s a curious phenomenon when new neighbourhoods flow around an established village, leaving it untouched.
A standard issue village comes with a church, pub, post office and an idiot.  Ducking stool and pond are optional, but essential is the villager mentality, typified by rightly despising anyone who lives beyond the speed limit and ‘Britain in bloom’ signs that mark the village borders.  This is a mind-set that, if we’re being generous, we could say originated in the age of the Plague, when anyone from outside the village was treated with suspicion and a stranger with a cough was stoned to death on the spot, with disinfected rocks.
Villagers jealously guard their status, which is why the latest missive from the Post Office, or post office inc. or post office ltd. or whatever the hell it’s now called, was an interesting and provocaative proposal to grant the name of the village to the wider area.  We are assured that this will not have any effect on post codes or the actual postal address, it’s just that we can all, officially, add another line to our address, but that line is the name of the local village.
Mainly, those that don’t live in the village view this as a good thing as it means a couple of things; a posher address and a couple of grand on your house value. 
For the villagers, it’s most probably seen as the dilution of identity. 
For anyone who lives outside the village who has aspirations of one day living in the village itself, it’s nothing short of an outrage, as the correct way to obtain a village address is to, you know, actually move there, rather than tick a box.
I’ve lived in villages, proper villages, they have a pub at each end, a church in the middle, a small store with a post office counter at the back and a green.  (Never saw an idiot though, although my neighbours at the time did mention one).  They also have fields at the end of the road between you and a farm and the next village, which you never visit, because those plague-carrying bastards can’t be trusted.
There are also hamlets.  Typically a few houses that have sort of huddled together for company, these are communities that once simultaneously aspired to village status but didn’t want to spoil the ‘character’ of the place but now, like everyone, just want broadband.
The vote will most probably swing in the direction of granting the name of the village to the surrounding postal area, through the simple mechanics that one only takes action, that is, fills out a form, if one objects. 
It’s one thing to object, it’s another to act on that objection, and it’s another thing entirely to, as is required, put that objection in words.  The only people with the confidence to scrawl ‘they’re just not our sort!’ on a post card and send it off are the villagers, who are of course outnumbered by those who want to be villagers, or who can’t be arsed.
By the way, if you can’t be arsed about the name of where you live, you’re not a villager.

The village hobby

Work. It should nourish the soul. Honest toil should result in a feeling of warm satisfaction and cold beer as success is celebrated in the traditional fashion at the end of a day when, thanks to your endeavours, the world is left a little bit better, with another shed erected, another suit exquisitely tailored or another poodle clipped into an amusing shape, than it was that morning.

Because there are people for whom their employment produces a sense of fulfilment. Sometimes they do something useful, like boat building or setting firework displays to music, sometimes what they appear to contribute to society is rather harder to define, but it gets them on the front of glossy magazines (although not always the ones that are just about glossy celebrities, one can imagine that even the most assured celebrity might wonder about their path in life if they are sharing the front page of a magazine with the story of a tragic teen who ate so much KFC they can only leave the house on a flatbed, through the wall). Getting paid for something that you actually enjoy doing is surely what everyone who has ever toiled aspires to.

Unfortunately, there's not a lot of money in sitting slumped in front of the telly flicking up and down the channels and wondering if the are any more wotsits left in the cupboard. Also, as a career choice, it looks poor on a CV if you want to progress to, for instance, flying a jet.

This is why people indulge in hobbies, because to stop yourself going mad with frustration at work, you can develop a socially accepted form of mania in your spare time. While many hobbies can be private and low-key, such as collecting antique prosthetic limbs, cutting locks of hair from the people in front of you on the bus without them knowing, or getting wasted on Lambrini in your front room while watching Mama Mia on DVD, again, on a Saturday night, other have a more public face.

And it doesn't get much more public than Morris Dancing. Lots of blokes running around in circles letting out the occasional whoop and thwacking sticks around, all the while jingling the bells attached to their ankles. Morris Dancing has for years attracted the professional classes. Bank managers, accountants, the more refined sort of sex pest, dentists and so on all feel the need to jump about while trying to convince people that they are upholding a folk generation that goes back centuries and are not simply a group of men with miserable home lives who cannot take up the traditional hobby of the unhappily married - angling - because of an irrational fear of tench.

The only hobby more public than Morris Dancing is, possibly, being in a pipe band. Every year the UN meets to try and have the bagpipe classified as a weapon and every year the Scots play the cultural card, that if anyone votes 'aye' they will stand outside their house and play 'Flower of Scotland' until the end of recorded time. The's a reason the bagpipe was used to lead men into battle. It bloody terrifies me and I know that it's essentially a device for reproducing the sound of music strained through a cat. If you were facing a Highland regiment of angry transvestites led by men with wailing demons under their arms, bricking it into the trees is an acceptable option.

Of course those days are long gone (south of the Tweed) and now you have recreational bagpipe playing (I know, but in a world where people get enemas for fun, I've stopped trying to make sense of this sort of thing) where presumably normal people gather together and try and make a sound not unlike a pig being sucked through a jet engine, for fun.

And in truth, confronted by the sheer enthusiasm of those that indulge in folk dancing and folk music, their obvious enjoyment is infectious. I mean, who can fail to adore a bloke with bells on his ankles, or a chap who has a waterproof made especially for his kilt? Weatherproofing for authentic celtic weather? Now that's attention to detail.

Postcard from Norfolk - Burnham Market

Just driving over the parish boundary into Burnham Market increases your social class by several tiaras*. It is home to quite a lot of weekend people, but during the week the bustle is provided by shoppers drawn to its lovely shops, selling lovely things, at lovely and occasionally eye-watering prices. Make no mistake though, the shops are also catering for the locals. While you can buy lovely shiny twinkly things in Norfolk Living you can also buy a lovely shiny washing tub in the local hardware shop. It has to be said though, the opportunity to blow a load of cash quickly exists here.

Take Wellington boots. Wellington boots should be purchased from a tub out front of a shop. They should be plastic and be good for standard Wellington boot use until one of two things happen, either they spring a leak or, as a result of an over-ambitious or incautious paddle, they are swamped and they never quite dry out or smell the same afterwards. They should not cost a hundred quid, not even if they have little straps on the side to aid pulling up. The only time a pair of Wellington boots should cost a hundred quid is when they are attached to the hooker you are playing out your Jilly Cooper fantasies with.

It's a lovely village with lovely shops, many of which still have the lovely habit of closing for lunch. It is interesting to wander over to the door of a shop that looks like a likely place to pick up a twinkly trinket or panoramic postcard and be confronted by a locked door and a small cardboard sign explaining 'closed for lunch, back at two'.

The quality of the cardboard signs vary. The one in the stationary shop was, as one might expect, on lovely white card, while the one in the window of the counter of the post office situated in the newsagents was a classic of its kind, a flap ripped from a brown cardboard box, with the corrugation showing along the edge and the message written in biro, with each line of each letter stroked a few times for emphasis and legibility. Both signs share one characteristic, one corner so slightly discoloured from daily handling as, at twelve fifty nine, they are fetched from their resting position and popped up against the glass.

In such circumstances the only sane response is to repair to The Hoste Arms for a pint or two of lunch yourself.

When the shops are open, the shopping is good. There's a good fishmonger, a great butcher, a fabulous second hand book shop and the opportunity to buy some great clothing. One of the shops persisted in selling cashmere shorts, but my interest was in shop selling hats, appropriately, upstairs. While I was distracted for a moment with a fur lined flying helmet/deerstalker combination, the greatest temptation came in the form of a Stetson brand hat, more or less like the one Indiana Jones wears. Not sure if my eventual decision to put the hat back and back away slowly was the right one, but it was informed by the fact that I have an almost identical one at home.

Of course I should have bought it. One cannot have too many Indiana Jones style hats.

The village is the home of the Brazen Head book shop. If one were to picture a second hand book shop, this would be the image called to mind. At the front of the shop are the old childrens' books, Rupert the bear annuals and Enid Blyton, then through to penguins and on to genres, upstairs for non-fiction. Books stacked up higgildy-piggledy, newish, oldish, antique. Careful browsing yielded a really rather nice Pan edition of an M. R. James book, and a book by Tom Woolf that I'd never heard of. The 1970s cover of the Tom Wolf book is of a pair of ladies legs, crossed. Nothing quite like a cover like that to suggest to everyone on the train that you are reading vintage porn.

Books in one hand, laptop in the other, it was time to sit outside the Hoste and have a refreshing pint of lunch. It was another very mild day, though not so crowded as everyone was now back at work. It used to be that one sat outside the pub to enjoy the fresh air but now, of course, one has anti-smoking laws and the tables outside are where all the puffers come to indulge their filthy little habit, secure in the knowledge that anyone drinking at lunchtime is unlikely to look down on anyone indulging a craving.

The tables were thankfully free of smokers, who were presumably in the pub getting their fix from the secondary smoke of the wood fire, and I sat there reading and poncing off the pubs wi-fi in the traditional manner before a few spots of rain drove me inside.

As per usual, there was a dog owner in the bar, unusually the dog in question was a pug. Is there any dog as ridiculous as the pug? This example was one of those with a one-dimensional face. Eyes, nose, mouth, all occupied a totally flat plane. Even its tongue did not poke out or loll, but curled backwards like an unblown party streamer, it had that asthmatic pug breathing that leads one to believe that the breed actually breath through their arses.

Burnham Market is lovely. It's so lovely that it makes Chipping Norton in the Cotswolds look like a sink estate. It's true that it's full of cars, and tourists and people who only occupy their second homes at the weekend, but the are real people here too, real shops and real shopkeepers with a real need to eat lunch. I think as long as it retains that, and the pub, all is not lost.

* The tiara is the unit social class is measured by. Can’t be cars or property or, god forbid, money. Comes down to this, can you wear a tiara and carry it off? Yes, congratulations, your social class is measured at one tiara and you probably have a title, some land and pretty firm views on immigration. The tiara scale is different to most units of measurement in that the vast majority of it is firmly at the minus end of the scale.