This Police Box pictured here stands somewhere in Edinburgh. I came across it on a site full of Glasgow Police Box's. A great site! These blue boxes used to be found everywhere and were first erected in 1928, soon spreading throughout the nation. They were much used by the bobby on the beat to keep in touch with his station, report any action, long before personal wireless and sat navs, beat up recalcitrant prisoners and have a fly smoke. Policemen were six feet two at least until Thatcher decided to lower the height restriction, thus enabling an increase in police numbers. My dad was refused entry after the war because he was nearly an inch too short! This was a pity as he would have been an ideal 'Dixon of Dock Green,' helping old ladies across the road and smacking neds around the head in those happier pre-PC days!
The box contained little bar a chair and a desk, a duster or two and a feeble electric fire. The light on the top would flash to inform the bobby that he was to contact the station. This he did via the phone linked direct to his home base.
The phone was also used by the public. Until the sixties (remember them?) the majority did not have phones or cars, and all the other trappings of a wealthy society. Trappings which today include obesity, tabloid celebrities and puerile television! The public could call for 'Fire, Police or Ambulance via the Police Box if there was no public phone box nearby. However while this must have been abused by passing drunks on occasion it was often misused by little boys from the school nearby. My school was one such! Personally I never got involved with such activities but at least one lad was renown for his larks. On more than one occasion we learned the police had received a call the 'The skools on fire!' from a lying fun filled brat. Our information came from the class door opening and the boys name being called out in stern tones. 'You, Headmasters office now!' I saw him lurking in 'The Goblet' one evening when I was about 19 although we didn't speak. Next I heard of him was his death being announced in the columns of the 'Evening News.' My mother, like women in that city, keeping note of everyone we knew via the 'Births, Marriage and Deaths' notices of said paper. No reason given for the death, so an early drug death is what comes to mind. He must have been 21.
Using the Police Box as 'The Tardis' in 'Dr Who' may well have been a brainwave in the early sixties, but how many brats understand the significance today? The 'Time and Relative Dimension In Space' machine is certainly a useful way to improve upon the Police Box of yesterday. None are used by our 'Boys in Blue' today as the radio controlled, fast car approach is a wonderful help in reducing the crime that we see all around us, if they turn up that is. Other disused police boxes have been removed and sold to those who like such things in their (large) gardens for use a sheds, many have become coffee stalls, one called 'Coppuchino,' and it must be said, considerably cheaper than Starbucks I would assume. I bet the service is cheerier!
