The story of our red telephone box

Back in September, I happened across an advert for a red telephone box needing restored in Scotland - in near Crinan as it happened. It's the sort of thing I like and I decided to buy it - I'd not seen it, neither did I know how to transport it, or where it would even go! No matter...I needed to get it first!

It so happened a friend lives in Inveraray and is just the sort of person you need to help with a task like this, so I phoned him and he was up for it. I met him after work in Inveraray and we made our way to Inverary in his VW flatbed, with some steel and plastic skids and a pinch bar.

On arriving, we found the box stuck way up the back of the garden on a ledge amongst trees...not a good start! The box used to belong to the man who was on Restoration Man having converted the Ice Box. The owners left us to it, and a couple of hours later, somehow we'd managed to shimmy it about, get it out of the mud, chop down parts of the tree, turn it 90degrees and start winching it on the flat bed. It's at this point I should point out that phone boxes of this ilk are made of cast iron, and weigh a ton - 3/4ton to be precise! Well, eventually, the box was standing upright on the back of the truck and strapped on. We returned to Peters and I left the box on the flat bed, till without knowing when to put it, or how to get it there. I eventually told my parents about it and could hear their eyes rolling as I spoke, but oddly they didn't seem too critical of this random purchase - in fact, my mother told me she'd always fancied one. You could have knocked me over at that - eventually, my parents agreed to let us keep it at their house until we had a home for it.

Cue me rocking up at Peters  week or so later with a V8 Wrangler, huge trailer and not much else. We took the trailer round to a yard in Inveraray with a huge tracked digger - a sling was attached and without sweat, it picked the box off the truck and onto the trailer...off I went, Houston bound.

On arriving, I started unloading - I had read up on how the Egyptian did things like this in the past and had an idea. As the box was lying on it's back, all I had to do was roll it off onto the ground! I had bought some round fence posts for the occasion and started to roll it off. I can't remember if I asked, or it was just good luck, but next thing my friend Steven appeared and had some good ideas, and in no time, we were rolling the box off the trailer with the aid of a high lift jack and some rachet straps! Once it was on the ground, we somehow had to get it upright again - cue a call to Mr Mercer, so 20mins later appeared in a massive tractor with front lifter. 10 mins later, it was upright and sitting on some skates, and we moved it round the side to it's new, albeit temporary, home.

Winter passed and the box was unattended - pointless trying to paint in damp, wet weather. as spring approached, my father starting making noises about painting and what sort of paint we should use. We had a lot on with starting to build the house, so just didn't have time to paint the box, when one night on the phone, my other announced that my father was painting the phone box...over the next few weeks, he worked solidly on it - rubbing back the rust and paint, applying primer (many coats), applying the red, cleaning, painting the crown - it really looked stunning. and so with the box painted, we still didn't know how to get it own to the water tank, it's new
home.

In October, we had to hire a HIAB to pick up scaffolding for us, and it made sense to pick up the phone box at the same time.

And so, it is now in it's new home near Largs - not quite in it's final position, but nestled next to the shipping container, causing many a passing motorist and cyclist to have a double take!