Thinking outside the box - 13 WTHR Indianapolis

The red telephone booth is as British as Buckingham Palace and Big Ben. But the icon is fading from view. Technology has made one of Britain's most recognizable images increasingly irrelevant.

"The most popular use for telephone kiosks now is a photo opportunity by visiting tourists," said cab driver Graham Woodhouse.

Travel across England and you will see them.  The kiosks are in every nook and cranny of this country.  But there is something missing - customers.

"I sit here waiting to go to church once a week, I never seen anyone going in," said one man sitting outside a phone booth in Thornbury.

Many kiosks are unused. Others have been abused by vandals.  It is estimated 88,000 were created in 1936.  Fewer than 25,000 exist today.

Still, there are many Brits who don't want them to disappear.

"It's part of British culture isn't it, a red telephone box," said Sue Reece who lives in the tiny village of Westbury-sub-Mendip.

Stu Dockree answered the call and dialed into a solution.

"I restore phone boxes.  Me and my guys," said the owner of English Phone Boxes. "I don't care how horrible it looks.  I know I can make it look brand new again."

Dockree takes the carcasses of old discarded kiosks and brings them back to life.  His workers in a Gloucester warehouse blast away at layers of old paint.  

"It'll be completely shop blasted back and then have a couple of coats of primer, a couple of top coats of paint, and then we start the task of putting all the bits and pieces back on.  The doors are always restored separately, then there are 72 panes of glass to restore, plus 72 glazing frames, so there's a lot more to it than meets the eye. People just think you throw a coat of red paint over it," said Dockree. 

"Once the kiosks have been stripped out and had everything removed from them, all the ancillary appendages, we get the carcasses in here.  We then use the shop blast material to clean off all the old coats of paint.  You can see here, probably 15-20 coats of paint from over the years," said Dockree.  

"Every kiosk is marked up with the customer's name, who it belongs to.  This kiosk belongs to a gentleman who's had it in his garden for 20 years.  He came from a village, and he's asked us to restore it," said Dockree.

The colors of the rainbow are used in turning old phone booths into showers, toilets, mini-bars and offices. 

"We've done a walk-in drinks cabinet, complete with optics, glass holders, shelving and mirrors," said Dockree.   "I would say 90 percent of our restorations are back to where they used to be.  But that does allow a lovely little 10 percent where people say, can you do this?  Can you do that?  So, we got involved in some really interesting projects for some really interesting places for some really interesting people," said Dockree.

"We even provided one for an undertaker in Manchester, who asked by the family of a deceased BT engineer to provide them with a kiosk so he could be laid to rest in a phone box," said Dockree.

"We installed one a couple of years back at the base of Mt. Snowdon in Wales purely and simply because the National Trust was fearful that if they had an emergency in and around Snowdon, because there's no mobile phone signal, they couldn't actually ring for emergency service.  So, there's still a very few places where they are functional.  But, by and large, they're aesthetic, and regarded as being more iconic rather than functional," said Dockree.

"We occasionally ship them over to the states.  Probably three or four a year that go over there because the American people created a love affair with the kiosk which is really, really pleasing," said Dockree. 

"We have inquiries from all over the world.  We've shipped to all corners of the world.  Malta, the kiosks we've done for the Foo Fighters.  When they produced their wish list for their concert, one of the things they asked for a red phone box for backstage.  They enjoyed the kiosk backstage.  They're a three-foot square box.  But, if you use your imagination and think outside the box sometimes, you can do a little bit more.  We did have a request from someone famous in England, Amanda Holden, wanted an office for her husband.  Best little project to date," said Dockree.

"We've done a couple of showers.  We did one for a zoo in Sussex.  We painted it up yellow with a black stripes, my paint genius did a lovely job on that.  It looks a bit like a Tiger.  That houses all the information for the youngsters to go in and read about all the attractions at the zoo," said Dockree.

"We did four horrible purple color ones for the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, once a year home for a big comedy festival.  We've done a green one for Azerbaijan, done a couple of orange ones for a national clothes company.  We've done black for (England football star) Alan Shearer," said Dockree.

Brits are finding all sorts of new uses for the old kiosks.  In the beautiful English countryside, there is a defibrillator inside one booth.  Meantime, in other tiny villages across the UK, the box now has books.  The book exchange is similar to a mini library.

"It's handy.  There's lots of books in there.  Lots of different types of books that perhaps you wouldn't normally read," said Shipham resident Sue Clifton.

"It's been here for so long, used by so many people, it's just tradition.  I just think people like tradition.  They just don't want to lose it.  So, let's use it so we don't lose it," said Shipham resident Tina Todd. 

Stu Dockree's goal is to think outside the box. 

"This kiosk here, they made 1,500 of them.  This is the rarest one about.  When that's restored, it will be sold for $8,000 or $9,000," said Dockree.

"I know that with the right amount of effort, and the right attention, it can be made brand new again.  And, that's what we try and do. That's the whole ethos for what me and my guys do is to restore as many phone boxes to the highest possible standard, so when the time comes I can look back on it and say I made a difference.  I'm gonna keep doing it until I go to the big phone box in the sky," said Dockree.