Payphone

I see someone at a public payphone and I'm immediately taken back to university and a time when you had to queue to use the few phones available in the halls of residence. If someone needed to get hold of you then they had to keep phoning until they were lucky enough to hit a moment when the line was free, then hope that someone would answer and be willing to go find you. I don't think it ever occurred to me how inconvenient that all was. We knew no different then.

Seeing this guy as a sitting duck in terms of getting a photograph I was also reminded of an occasion when we were away on a pot-holing (spelunking to those from the U.S.) trip in winter. There was a lot of snow about and one of the girls was using a telephone box to call her parents and let them know she was okay. One of the glass panes was part broken so we started hurling snowballs, as you do, at the kiosk to try to get one through the small gap. It wasn't long before I landed a direct hit to the ear, resulting in a suitably loud scream, which took some explaining away to her poor worried parents. They really had no idea!