British red telephone box with a secret to be restored as 'penance' for misspent youth

Paul Evans, 72, has taken over the restoration of the well-known Runcton telephone box at Tangmere Military Aviation Museum and started work on it on Tuesday, March 31, after weeks of research.

The telephone box was originally installed in the car park at The Walnut Tree pub in June 1932, on the edge of what became RAF Merston, a satellite airfield for RAF Tangmere during the Second World War. It remained sited there until June 2023, when it was taken to the museum for restoration.

Paul said: “Someone had already started restoring it but the poor chap died two or three years ago and it's been left as it was ever since.”

Having moved down from Chiddingfold with his family about a year ago, he was looking for something to do. His skills as a furniture maker were well suited to the volunteer work at the museum and the phone box proved the perfect project.

Paul said: “This is my penance. When I was younger, in my early teens or even younger, my friends and I in south-east London saved up all our fireworks for Bonfire Night.

“We had a telephone box at the end of the road and we thought it would be good fun to set them off in it and see how much smoke it would produce.

“We had so many fireworks, it blew it up and all the glass shattered. Fortunately, my father was great friends with the local policeman and my punishment was at home. I think he saw the funny side.

“When I was given the job at the museum, I read a story about this sad phone box and what happened to it. Whoever wrote it said they hoped someone would restore it some day. That really touched me.

“I want to do the best job I can. It's nostalgia. It has a lot of memories. It is going to be fully fitted out and if I had my way, it would be working.”

Paul discovered the telephone box sat right on the edge of the airfield, near to one of the gates, and apparently it was where the pilots would have phoned home. He also found out it survived an accident at RAF Merston in November 1943.

Paul explained: “A bomber was flying back across the Channel. It had a bomb that would not release. Apparently the pilot was told to bail out and let the plane sink but he said he could land it, which he did successfully.

“As he switched the engine off, the bomb released and the plane blew up. It blew out all the windows of the telephone box and part of the pub was demolished in the explosion.”

One of Britain's first red telephone boxes, this is a K2 kiosk, made by MacFarlane & Co Ltd at the Saracen Foundary in Glasgow. The style was designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott and introduced across Britain by the General Post Office from 1926.

Paul said: “I am so pleased that the museum bought it. I think it is very important because pilots would definitely have called home from it and for a lot of them, it would have been the last telephone conversation with home.”

The door frame is mahogany with a metal insert. Paul will fully fit out the kiosk out inside and is keen to buy a period phone, and wire it up so it rings when people walk by it at the museum.

The job could take months and Paul said he will need a lot of patience but he is determined to see it in pride of place at the front of the museum when it is finished.

He said: “I don't want it looking too new. There is a bit of damage to the iron work. I love old iron. I used to make shabby chic furniture and sourced old metal to incorporate into it. I tried to make as much as possible out of reclaimed wood.”

The kiosk was originally set in deep concrete and had a concrete floor but Paul will now put in a wooden floor.