Benhall’s Telephone Boxes
The red telephone box was first introduced in 1921 and to celebrate over 100 years BT announced in 2023 that around 1,000 of them were up for sale. In 1990s there were over 100,000 pay boxes in use but only a small percentage of them remain in working condition today.
How times have changed! It was only just over 70 years ago after WWII that the Telephone Service was promoted as a career. Before mobiles and automated direct dial calling, telephone calls were connected by telephone operators. To make a phone call you would pick up a handset and ask the operator to connect you to the number you wanted. Operator calls were connected by inserting a pair of phone plugs into the appropriate jacks, as seen in image left dated 1946.
Telephone Exchange 1946
Norman Burtenshaw 2009
Norman Burtenshaw, International football referee who lived in Benhall Green, first worked as a telephonist at Great Yarmouth G.P.O. where men worked the night shift and ladies the day, so the two never met. He mentioned that he had to get colleagues to cover for him so often, so that he could go and referee, that he was eventually asked to decide, football or telephones? Many of you know which he chose: Norman Burtenshaw became a Football League referee in 1962, and achieved international status after only three seasons in 1965.
In 1980, in preparation for privatisation, Post Office Telephones was rebranded as British Telecom and it was after privatisation then that the company decided to create a newly designed and improved take on the red telephone box. Many of the newly introduced boxes were again restyled after BT changed their logo in 1991 per images shown.
Parish Councillors cleaning the newly purchased box
BT first introduced the ‘Adopt a Kiosk’ programme in 2008 and around 7,200 phone kiosks were adopted by local communities. Many of these redundant telephone boxes have since been repurposed for book exchanges, food banks and other local community projects.
Indeed, Benhall & Sternfield’s Parish Council bought their telephone box for one pound (£1.00). Since then, the box has been a focal point for the community passing on information about upcoming events, celebrating anniversaries and more recently showcasing historic images of bygone times in the village, with the panels being created by local resident Derek Chambers.
Occupations, October 2023
V.E. Day Anniversary, April 2025
If you wondered what happened to the original red telephone box… it was sold, though for much more than £1, and the family that purchased it transported it to their home in London where it happily resides in their back garden.
