Mr BW writes:
Regular readers will have already seen Part 1 of my exciting saga and will be excitedly waiting for Part 2.
(insert advert here for a random washing up liquid, if most other pages these days can do it then so can I)
As a recap, at the end of the last episode I had the black backboard, signs and shelving unit installed in the red telephone kiosk.
At this point I began the search for a grey/black 1970s pay phone for it.
I assumed that, with the tens/hundreds of thousands made, there must be loads knocking around.
Wrong.
They were taken out by BT and broken up for scrap. I have seen just one for sale in the last 2 years and it went for £800 plus auction charges and was a pile of junk needing complete restoration.
Time for a rethink.
In my (extensive) searches I saw one on a theatre prop rental site. It was made from wood, quoted as being fine for stage use.
That gave me an idea: I could make one.
I had a piece of Glulam, left over from our building works, that had been sitting in my workshop waiting for a purpose. Glulam is basically a wooden laminate joist that can be used instead of a steel joist. This leftover piece is a bit off the end of the joist holding up the gabled roof over our single-storey bedroom and craft room. We wouldn’t have chosen a Glulam joist, but, in 2021, in the middle of the Covid 19 pandemic, steels were not readily available so it was Glulam or delay building works by an unknown amount of time.
With a slice off the bottom rotated and stuck to the end it is the correct overall dimensions for a 1970s phone.

Then I bought an old not working BT 1970s domestic wall phone for £11. It s a type 711, full details from my now favourite website here.

The insides are a wonder of nuts, bolts, resistors and mechanical wizardry, Not a semiconductor in sight.

I feel a little guilty about breaking it up but, unlike the 705 phone box phones, they weren’t broken up for scrap, and so there are literally thousands of them out there, just search on your favourite auction site.
The plan is to put the wooden bit and the cannibalised phone together, with a few bits of scrap metal bent into shape for the money slot and coin reject tray. Again, thanks to my now favourite website, I have dimensions and the correct pantone for the grey paint, which is still readily available.
Money spent so far: with the 711 phone, I am now £91 in against a theoretical £2,500 to buy an interior.
One can only wonder who had the number Shepherdswell 830452, and why they had a wall phone (receiver sits on the top) rather than a table phone (receiver sits on the body of the phone).
Blue Witch
The ‘Shepherdswell’ exchange seems an appropriate one for us as there are both sheep and wells in very close proximity to us.
Tim W.
My parents had a wall phone, to save space in a small hallway – no table required.