FULMER NEWSLETTER - Fulmer Village

FULMER’S PHONE BOX
Earlier this year I received a circular email from Pauline Vahey notifying
us that the old phone box, which had been decommissioned by British
Telecom, was in danger of disappearing from the village forever. The
village had the option to buy it for a pound, but they needed volunteers
to take care of it. After walking past it on a daily basis and seeing what
a sorry state it was in, I volunteered...it was something my lungs and
kidneys will never forgive me for.
For those who don't know, the K6 phone box was designed in 1935 by
Giles Gilbert Scott to commemorate the Silver Jubilee of King George V.
They have become an iconic part of England. I have begun to notice
what a terrible state the majority are in in this country and there are
very few left nowadays. In fact Fulmer lost its K6 in the early 80's and
it was replaced with a modern version, which looked totally out of place
in this lovely little village. The villagers kicked up a fuss back then and
it was duly reinstated. It had several makeovers over the years, the old
lamp was replaced with a flourescent light box, the glass windows had
been replaced with perspex, which had become tired and milky. The 75
years worth of paint was flaky and dull and rust was coming through. It
really was in a bad state.
After one drunken night down at the Black Horse I managed to press
gang a fellow Fulmer resident Adam Rowlands into helping out.... 'it will
just need a quick lick of paint and some new windows' I told
Adam....see you at 9am in the morning....!! Oh how we were wrong.....
After surveying it for half an hour we decided there was no option but to
strip the whole thing back to bare metal inside and out and start from
scratch; if it was to last another 75 years there was no other way. I had
rebuilt many classic cars over the years, so we saw it as a reasonable
challenge. We thought, let's put it back to how it would have looked in
the 1930's. Out came the grinders with wire wheels attached and about
8 full days of stripping followed. There was easily 15 layers of paint on
this box...! I read after finally stripping the box that the paint was lead
based, so if you are reading this and Adam and I have since died, you
know why!
We then gave it a total of 2 coats of red primer followed by 3 top coats
of official BT paint. Luckily there are specialists who deal in these
telephone boxes so the parts were readily available. The box was fitted
with brand new 6mm safety glass with grateful thanks to Stef from
Cherry Tree Lane. The door was rebuilt in the workshop at the Heather
and Alvars farm, a very special thanks to them both, and to Bob and
Marcus for their generous help and advice and to Karen for letting us
plunder the village halls power supply! We then fitted new leather door
straps, fitted new telephone signs to the roof, fitted a vintage light