The red phonebox is a British landmark pre-dating WW2, found abundantly in both urban and rural areas, and for several decades was the most effective means of communication between the people of Great Britain, alongside that of the Royal Mail Postage Service, which also used to be operated by the General Post Office; encompassing both postal and telephone communication. They have survived through some harsh decades' worth of poor British weather, facing storm, snow, torrential rain accompanied by blistering heat (though not as much heat as the other weather variations!). The phonebox has been with us almost as long as living human memory; however its downfall is soon to come. They are too costly, too infrequently used, too much a bother to the organizations which service them, to be of much profitable value. Some have already been uprooted, taken away and left for scrap, merely because of the small cost of electricity required to power them, and with the era of the mobile phone completely upon us, their demise can only be hastened.

However, it is because of their cultural, sentimental and heartening value that I have decided to create a series of caches which will (hopefully) eventually include every phonebox left standing on the Isle of Man. I would also like to dedicate this series to my loving uncle, a part-time historian, who has documented the progression of human communication including, with great reference, the British phonebox in one of his books, and has also expertly taken the pictures to accompany each one, throughout all seasons of the year.

I was going to hide this one in the small Jubilee Gardens, however I hadn’t been able to ascertain where I would need to get permission from, so found a sneakier hiding place instead. A magnet is being used – though maybe not on the largest piece of cast-iron around!