British Museum July 2016
Category Archives: News
Street action
A bit of street art and entertainment, as seen from above, utilising the phone box (July 2016, Canary Wharf, London).
Uplifting story about a phone box
Woman left in phone box as a baby is reunited with the man who found her
Kiran outside the phone box in Forest Gate, where she was found. Credit: SWNS
A woman abandoned in a phone box as a baby has been reunited with the man who found her. Kiran Sheikh was just two hours old when her mother dumped her in the middle of the night on April 30, 1994.
Her rescuer Joe Campbell said at first he thought the baby – who he named April – was an empty chip wrapper as he approached the phone box. He told Good Morning Britain:
“When I saw it was a little baby I called 999 and the police came and the ambulance came and that’s when I found out she was just about two hours old.”
Joe said he felt an “instant connection” with the baby and even asked if he could adopt her, but was told it wasn’t possible as he wasn’t married at the time.
“I asked if I could keep in contact, I was told no, that’s not possible. I asked if I could find out how she was doing, and I was told no, that’s not possible.”
In the end Joe had to cut all contact with Kiran but said he never gave up hope of finding her one day. Kiran went searching for him after discovering who he was in her adoption file.
“He had done so much for me. It said in my file he gave me presents, he sent me cards and I never received anything, but he did. I needed to thank him somehow,” she said. And it wasn’t long before they were reunited.
Joe said: “It was one of the happiest days of my life because I never stopped looking for her. I was always hopeful that someday, somehow I would find her before I finally part this world.”
After the emotional reunion, the pair said it was like finding a family member.
“She is my family. I told her you’ve got siblings. Ok, we’re not blood related but it’s like we are,” Joe said.
For the full story with images – go to the ITV News website.
Overgrown phone box in St Michaels
Closing the door of overgrown phone box in St Michaels is like a bushtucker trial from I’m A Celebrity
Covered in thick foliage and buried deep into the hedgerow, this phone box in St Michaels felt like “something from I’m A Celebrity”.
Councillor Sue Ferguson, who posted the picture on social media, said closing the door of the dark, dingy kiosk felt like a challenge from the ITV show.
Councillor Sue Ferguson, who posted the picture on social media, said closing the door of the dark, dingy kiosk felt like a challenge from the ITV show.
She said:
“If you were slightly scared of insects you really wouldn’t want to be in there. It was quite horrible to go inside. It felt like one of those awful things from I’m A Celebrity – it would be one their terrible tasks to actually shut the door!”
In the popular reality show, contestants perform tricky or terrifying tasks – bushtucker trials – to win food and treats for their camp and most of the challenges involve creepy crawlies.
The kiosk next to the Fat Ox pub still works but as most people have a mobile phone now, it is rarely used.
Their production of telephone boxes ended altogether in 1985 with the advent of the KX series phones and many kiosk around the country have been broken and abandoned.
Mrs Ferguson added:
“I tweeted pictures of it to BT showing what a state it was in and they actually replied to say they would get this sorted, so well done BT for wanting to do something about it.”
Box marks the spot
BT installed its 100,000th payphone at Dunsop Bridge, Lancashire in 1992 and included a plaque to explain its significance. It reads:
“You are calling from the BT payphone that marks the centre of Great Britain.”
In fact, the phone is 4.2 miles (6.8 km) from the true centre. Postmaster and shop owner Phil Woodhead said the town did not capitalise on its status.
“There is only that payphone really… we haven’t put up big signs or anything like that. If this was a bigger town with more shops, then maybe we would do something. But because we are so small, there is really no-one to push it.”
Goose tribute
Local phone box is a place to lay tribute to a much loved village goose.
Photo supplied by SWNS.
Villagers have been left devastated after a goose which had been a much loved part of their community for over a decade was shot dead.
Residents were outraged after learning their feathered friend had been killed in a “spineless” attack, shot close to his left eye with what is thought to have been an air rifle, just yards from the pond where it hatched 11 years ago.”
(Full story on the Telegraph website)
Phone for fish
A Mayfair phone box will be transformed into a glowing aquarium and trees will be hung with lights when the Lumiere festival come to Lndon next month. Neon balloon dogs will set up home in the Strand, while angel-like figures, by Cedric Le Borgne, will appear around St James. The French artist is one of more than 20 who will use light shows and special effects to brighten up streets from Kings Cross to the West End from January 14 to 17. Curator Helen Marriage said:
“Lumiere London is a free event, accessible to all.”
History
This isn’t new to this blog, as such, but good to see the phone box still warrants news articles. Here reproduced from yesterday’s ‘Guardian’…
Sir John Soane: how tomb for architect’s wife inspired the red telephone box
The Soane family tomb and the telephone boxes it inspired.
When Eliza Soane died 200 years ago, it changed the life of her architect husband Sir John Soane – and it changed the British streetscape through the strange afterlife of the tomb he designed for her, which inspired the design of the iconic red telephone box.
Soane never got over his wife’s death on 22 November 1815 although he lived until 1837. He was one of the most renowned architects of his day – creator of monumental public buildings including the Bank of England, churches, and country houses, as well as an avid collector of fragments of older buildings including Old St Paul’s cathedral. He blamed her death on the shock of discovering that their son George was the author of some malevolent anonymous reviews of his work.
Her tomb, which became the family vault, was raised over her grave in Old St Pancras churchyard in 1816, and inspired the Giles Gilbert Scott telephone kiosk. Scott knew the tomb well as a trustee of the Sir John Soane’s Museum for 35 years, and his 1920s creation is now an endlessly imitated landmark in British design.
Staff of the museum in Lincoln’s Inn Fields in London, the family’s home and his workshop, have commissioned a specially designed wreath to lay on her grave in Old St Pancras churchyard.
Helen Dorey, acting museum director, said: “I regard this primarily as a private pilgrimage which we are doing because it is the right thing to do to honour our founder and his family.”
The ceremony was organised for 23 November, which dawned sunny and frosty in the first cold snap of winter.
“The last time we laid a wreath on the Soane tomb was in January 1987 to mark the 150th anniversary of Soane’s death – there was snow on the ground,” Dorey recalled.
The Soane family home – with features including a shadowy cell for an imaginary monk, a gigantic Egyptian sarcophagus and a towering monument to their pet dog, but also Eliza’s cosy dining room and parlour – has been open as a museum since her husband’s day. It is still full of memories of Eliza, who was a passionate art collector and added paintings by JMW Turner and William Hogarth, which are still among the gems of the collection.
She was buried on 1 December 1815, and Soane recorded in his diary: “Melancholy day indeed! The burial of all that is dear to me in this world and all I wished to live for.”
Soane never forgave his son for Eliza’s death. He framed the fatal reviews in black, and hung them on the wall, headed “Death Blows given by George Soane.”
There are several images of the tomb in the current exhibition at the museum, Death and Memory, including a wildly romantic view by George Basevi, which shows it as a gigantic structure set in a forested gorge, not a crowded London churchyard.
George Basevi’s painting of Eliza Soane’s tomb. Photograph: Hugh Kelly/Sir John Soane’s Museum
Mexico City public toilets
Another guy that takes photos of urinals…
Using public toilets all over Mexico City completely changed the way I viewed it
