Daily Photo – Those Red Telephone Boxes

I do love these red phone boxes. I stop and look at them every time I walk past. There used to be three of them, but I’ve no idea what happened to the third! There were once many more across the city until Telecom New Zealand took over the national telephone service and decided to modernise them by removing them completely.

Such was the public outcry that Telecom agreed to keep the red colour, however, they soon began replacing the old wooden boxes with new metal and plastic payphones. Personally, I think the former heads of Telecom should be made to track down and reinstall every single red phone box throughout the city.

While we’re at it, they should restore the train networks that once ran throughout the city and across the region. Further more, we could reverse the effects of quarrying at Blackhead, rebuild Cargill’s Castle, go back to firing a noonday cannon from Bell Hill, bring back the trams, re-establish all the student bars, revive the ferry steamer that used to run on Otago Harbour, and finally, rebuild every heritage building that’s been pulled down – brick by brick – starting with The Exchange Building that was demolished in the 1960s.

Then, Dunedin would be a truly wonderful city.