What were Police telephone boxes?

; Date: Tue Aug 08 2017

Tags: Doctor Who

Think "The TARDIS" and you think an old-style Police Telephone Box. TARDIS's are supposed to adjust their shape to fit their surroundings, but The Doctor's TARDIS refuses to do so. Supposedly it's a broken chameleon circuit, or maybe this TARDIS has a mind of its own. In any case there is a real history to the Police Telephone Box's in Great Britain. They served a public safety function, giving police officers a place to rest/work and keep in touch with their precinct, and it gave the public a quick way to contact the police for assistance.

In the late 1960's the government declared the police telephone boxes were redundant. A campaign was launched to remove telephone boxes from British and Scottish cities.

In at least Glasgow, an effort was made to preserve their remaining police telephone boxes as a piece of history. Initially Glasgow had 11 remaining boxes, but at some point they began removing the boxes leaving just four. Those four appear to be protected, now, as historical sites.

About the Author(s)

(davidherron.com) David Herron : David Herron is a writer and software engineer focusing on the wise use of technology. He is especially interested in clean energy technologies like solar power, wind power, and electric cars. David worked for nearly 30 years in Silicon Valley on software ranging from electronic mail systems, to video streaming, to the Java programming language, and has published several books on Node.js programming and electric vehicles.