Payphones

Payphones: The End of the Line?
A brief look...

	Telephone kiosks and payphones were once the only means to make a call, for those people who were not subscribers, or who were away from home. In the first decade of 2000, it is likely that mobile phones outnumber fixed lines, so that the need for public payphones is ever diminishing... Photo: LS Archive.
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Introduction

Here we take a brief look at just a few examples of telephone kiosks, which were once more commonplace in everyday life.

The K4 telephone kiosk with stamp vending machine

Post Office Telephone: K4 kiosk
At one time, postage stamps could only be bought from a Post Office, so it seemed a logical idea to include a stamp vending machine on the outside of a telephone kiosk, hence the K4 'vermillion giant' was born.
Photo: K4 in Warrington October 2006 P. Gates

Post Office Stamps: K4 kiosk
It is said that the stamp vending machine was noisy for those using the telephone and was a liability to maintain.
Separate stamp vending machines could once be found outside Post Offices too.

Photo: K4 in Warrington October 2006 P. Gates

The K6 telephone kiosk

This cluster of K6s looks somewhat neglected (notice the peeling paint on the roofs), but the technology inside, for at least one, is state of the art; e-mail, text, phone!

Photo: "K6s awaiting culling" Cheltenham, Gloucester. July 2007 P. Gates

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