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Old red phone boxes


Guest tsavo

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Usless factoid for today:

The famous red phone box's were designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott who suggested they should be silver on the outside and a greeny blue on the inside.

:rolleyes::rolleyes: :rolleyes:

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Usless factoid for today:

The famous red phone box's were designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott who suggested they should be silver on the outside and a greeny blue on the inside.

:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:

Did he have any thoughts about the smell of urine and vomit ?

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If he did, they were not recorded.

I had to laugh when I read the press release from BT when they launched the 'new' phone boxes. They were described as "self cleaning".

If you look at one you'll realise the glass starts a foot above the ground. The wind acts as a cleaner.

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Usless factoid for today:

The famous red phone box's were designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott who suggested they should be silver on the outside and a greeny blue on the inside.

:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:

When I was at university in Hull the city had its own telephone company which was independent from British Telecom / Post Office Telecommunications.

The Hull Telephone Company used exactly the same telephone boxes as BT (the K7's) but they were painted creamy white instead of red.

As far as I know this situation still exists to this day but my old mate who used to work for BT, Stuart0742, is the man who will know for sure.

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When I was at university in Hull the city had its own telephone company which was independent from British Telecom / Post Office Telecommunications.

The Hull Telephone Company used exactly the same telephone boxes as BT (the K7's) but they were painted creamy white instead of red.

As far as I know this situation still exists to this day but my old mate who used to work for BT, Stuart0742, is the man who will know for sure.

As far as I know Hull telephones is still independent from BT, and the old style boxes are still cream, though like everywhere else they have the modern variety.

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Usless factoid for today:

The famous red phone box's were designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott who suggested they should be silver on the outside and a greeny blue on the inside.

:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:

Science bonus :

Why were telephone boxes and more specifically warning signs e.g. fire, most road signs, extinguishers etc designed in red ?

(RichardB, B. Sc. Physiological Sciences II/I (Hons), University of Newcastle upon Tyne 1984)

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The Red Phonebox we all recognise is the K6, introduced in 1936, the K7 was a 1959 prototype design which was not introduced.

The K8 was introduced in 1968. the main difference was that there were no glazing bars, just 1 sheet of glass per side.

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See Telephone Box Challenge

Lets find the boxes

Another challenge brought to you by Stuart0742 from inspiration provided by DaveH,

Then & Now's

Mystery locations

Mystery bus / tram / train pictures

Members photo's / mystery member

RED TELEPHONE BOXES

What sort of challenge will they come up with next?

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Science bonus :

Why were telephone boxes and more specifically warning signs e.g. fire, most road signs, extinguishers etc designed in red ?

(RichardB, B. Sc. Physiological Sciences II/I (Hons), University of Newcastle upon Tyne 1984)

It's all to do with chlorolabe, cyanolabe and erythrolabe obviously ...

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The Hull phone company is now caled KCOM, which trades as Kingston Communications (as in the KC Stadium).

A larger picture of David Mach's Out of Order:

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The Hull phone company is now caled KCOM, which trades as Kingston Communications (as in the KC Stadium).

A larger picture of David Mach's Out of Order:

Can't accurately remember its full official name when I was there in the mid 1970's but we always called it "Hull telephone company". Its official name may well have been Kingston something or other even then as Kingston is the Cities proper title.

The full name of the City is "Kingston upon Hull", Hull being the tattiest, most polluted little river in Yorkshire, and one that many people would not recognise. The river Hull flows into the Humber, just to the west of "the deep" and the Humber is a massive and well known river. All of Kingstons big docks are on the Humber and not the Hull, so I often wondered why they never called it "Kingston upon Humber".

Enjoyed my time there, nice City, and a bit of a novelty having those cream coloured telephone boxes.

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Can't accurately remember its full official name when I was there in the mid 1970's but we always called it "Hull telephone company". Its official name may well have been Kingston something or other even then as Kingston is the Cities proper title.

The full name of the City is "Kingston upon Hull", Hull being the tattiest, most polluted little river in Yorkshire, and one that many people would not recognise. The river Hull flows into the Humber, just to the west of "the deep" and the Humber is a massive and well known river. All of Kingstons big docks are on the Humber and not the Hull, so I often wondered why they never called it "Kingston upon Humber".

Enjoyed my time there, nice City, and a bit of a novelty having those cream coloured telephone boxes.

I sure we just referred to them as "Hull Telephones" but as you say Kingston must have come into the full name.

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http://www.kcom.com/aboutus/ourhistory/

A bit of a potted history

Hull City Telephone Department, just another council department :)

Probably NOT the best way to show a cream coloured Hull Telephone Department phone box, -

using a black and white picture which is actually an enlargement from a standard 8mm movie film frame (hence the funny edges)

but at present it's the best I can find.

Picture is taken from a short film I made while at University.

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Guest transit

The old ones were called the 'K7's' I think

....K6 ' s were the "standard" style we all recognise ;-) check www.redphonebox.info/history.htm

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Guest transit

....what about the K8 's around the 70's-80's ??????? I think a few were on the Norfolk Park estate .....

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....what about the K8 's around the 70's-80's ??????? I think a few were on the Norfolk Park estate .....

Only one I can remember ever using on the Norfolk Park Estate was at the junction of City Road and Park Grange Road (the bit that had formerly been the end of Spring Lane), and that was one of the older more familiar models.

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In the 50's we had a phone (first on the street) supplied by the Telegraph and Star for my dad's work. It seemed quite normal for people to ring us with messages for our near neighbours.

1960's I had a girlfriend who lived at Grenoside who's family, like most people, didn't have a phone. If I needed to get in touch, I used to ring the phone box round the corner from their house. When a passer by answered it didn't seem to be an unusual request to ask them to knock on the door round the corner to tell her I was calling.

I also remember that early evenings there would often be people standing outside phone boxes waiting for pre-arranged incoming calls.

On the way home from school we would routinely nip into all the phone boxes and press Button B just in case there was any money (was it fourpence?) that had not been reclaimed after a failed call by someone.

Any one remember (what we called) Phone Tapping for free calls from the old red boxes? Only possible with pulse dialling phones before tone dialling came in. For those who don't know, you dial each digit and quickly tap the bar that the receiver sat on for the corresponding number of times before the dial returned. Repeat for each digit. Quite easy for numbers without a zero and with digits below 6. After 6 it was difficult to get the taps in fast enough. For some technical reason (that I've never known) this allowed the call without putting money in. Maybe someone knows how this worked.

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In the 50's we had a phone (first on the street) supplied by the Telegraph and Star for my dad's work. It seemed quite normal for people to ring us with messages for our near neighbours.

1960's I had a girlfriend who lived at Grenoside who's family, like most people, didn't have a phone. If I needed to get in touch, I used to ring the phone box round the corner from their house. When a passer by answered it didn't seem to be an unusual request to ask them to knock on the door round the corner to tell her I was calling.

I also remember that early evenings there would often be people standing outside phone boxes waiting for pre-arranged incoming calls.

On the way home from school we would routinely nip into all the phone boxes and press Button B just in case there was any money (was it fourpence?) that had not been reclaimed after a failed call by someone.

Any one remember (what we called) Phone Tapping for free calls from the old red boxes? Only possible with pulse dialling phones before tone dialling came in. For those who don't know, you dial each digit and quickly tap the bar that the receiver sat on for the corresponding number of times before the dial returned. Repeat for each digit. Quite easy for numbers without a zero and with digits below 6. After 6 it was difficult to get the taps in fast enough. For some technical reason (that I've never known) this allowed the call without putting money in. Maybe someone knows how this worked.

Stuart0742 is our "telephone man", I'm sure he will know all the technicalities of "phone tapping".

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Stuart0742 is our "telephone man", I'm sure he will know all the technicalities of "phone tapping".

The old pre-payment button A & B payphones were a little before my time with PO/BT.

700 type pay on answer boxes were introduced from 1959 onwards to coincide with STD.

Button A & B boxes were just a single fee type of device where the the action of pressing button A merely dropped the money into the cashbox and removed a short from the mouthpiece allowing you to talk.

Therefore there were a few fiddles to avoid payment, one of which Vox has mentioned, there was also a way of "back dialling" this was something to do with allowing the dial to return from zero (10 pulses) back to 5 this would give you 5 (back to 6 would give you 4 ) etc. This was to do with how the box dealt with zero as "0" was for the operator. As I said before my time.

Also there was some sort of fiddle with poking a lolly stick through the coin slot and moving the coin bar, this fooled the box into thinking you had put some coins in.

I am sure some of our members with a few more years under their belts may be able to elaborate.

Another thing about these boxes, if you made a long distance call via the operator she would tell you to deposit say 2 shillings, as you put in your money each coin would strike a bell and the operator would count the dings and would be able to tell what coins you entered.

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