Cafes or libraries, the second life of British telephone booths

In his workshop full of period memorabilia, full of rusty gasoline tanks or enameled plates, Carl Burge puts the finishing touches on a red telephone booth, an emblem in the United Kingdomwhich is restoring.

For more than two decades, this 54-year-old has given a second youth to these “legendary” cabins, but they are aging, spoiled by the humid British climate.

”If you send a postcard to any place in the world, with a photo of a red telephone box, 95% of people will know that it came from England”Burge tells AFP.

Since their appearance in the 1920s, these red cabins have become one of the main symbols of London and of United Kingdombut most have evaporated from the British landscape since the advent of mobile phones.

There are only 20,000 working public telephones left (compared to 100,000 in the 1990s), including 3,000 red booths, according to the operator BT.

Various destinations

More than 7,000 of these booths ended up in the hands of groups, associations or churches. Many became the property of local communities and were transformed into mini-libraries, information kiosks for tourists or even defibrillators.

Some of these telephone booths that are no longer used as such can also be rented by small businesses, such as the tiramisu brand “Walkmisu” in central London.

Near Russel Square, Daniele Benedettini has installed himself inside two red telephone booths to sell the famous Italian dessert.

”I think it’s great to be able to mix the English tradition with the Italian tradition,” he explains to AFP.

Opening a business in an old cabin, rented from a private owner, costs less than a business in a premises, adds the 29-year-old, who started with Walkmisu before opening a café nearby.

Its two cabins were renovated and equipped with shelves, a refrigerator and a coffee machinemaintaining its emblematic exterior.

According to Carl Burge, restoring a cabin takes an average of six weeks.

This Briton has seen many red cabins pass by his workshop in King’s Lynn, in the east of England, often broken, without glass in their windows and with rotting wooden doors.

meticulous work

Carl Burge, who worked in the automotive world early in his career, turned his passion for British collectibles into a small restoration business, known as “Remember When UK.” At first, he bought a telephone booth. and he restored it, before displaying it in his garden and then selling it, which he regretted, realizing that “he missed it.”

After becoming a professional restaurateur, Carl Burge now works in several cabins at the same time.

Among them is a copy of the famous K2, the first model of red telephone booth introduced in 1926 and conceived by the British architect Giles Gilbert Scott, known for his work on public buildings in London.

Two decades after starting out in cabin restoration, Carl Burge hasn’t lost any of his passion.

“I’m getting a little older, everything seems to be harder for me, but I think I maintain the same enthusiasm,” he declares. “In fact, I think my desire is even greater,” she concludes.