What is a K-6?

“K-6” is short for Kiosk Number 6, which is the sixth iteration of the venerable British telephone box, what we would call a phone booth in America. Phone booths were once very popular before cell phones became prevalent. One could drop a coin into the “pay phone” to make local calls. For “long distance” calls, an operator would assist the caller, which usually included asking the caller to drop several more coins into the phone’s coin slots.

In the U.K., Bermuda, Gibraltar, and in other British Commonwealths, the red K-6 British phone box was once ubiquitous. It was made of cast iron, a wooden door, 72 glass panes, and was mounted on a concrete base. It weighed about one ton.

The original design was created by Sir Giles Scott, a British architect. The rare K-1 model was produced in 1925 with K-2 through K-8 models manufactured through the late 1960s. But the most popular was the K-6, which became true symbol of Great Britain. By 1960, around 60,000 K-6 phone boxes were installed in the UK.

We owned one for 31 years. My wife Nancy bought a K-6 at a scrap yard in England when we were stationed at RAF Lakenheath. British Telecom was replacing the old heavy phone boxes with new yellow fiberglass boxes. Scrap yards were buying the old phone boxes for metal recycling, but discovered there was a better market for these items. I think we paid £300 (about $500 at the time) and we instantly had a true conversation piece.

We moved from the U.K. to Ramstein AB, Germany in the early 1990s and the box moved with our household goods to our home in Schwedelbach. It sat in our front yard until we returned to the USA. One Saturday morning in Schwedelbach, we heard a knock on our door. A British soldier also stationed in Germany saw the phone box as he drove by and wondered if one of his countrymen lived in our home.

The K-6 moved with us to the United States in 1993 when I retired from the military. I remember a crane was needed to lift the phone box from a flatbed truck to our front yard. The gentleman operating the crane politely informed us that we needed to make sure we had it exactly where we wanted it because it wasn’t going to move. We understood the difficulty moving a 2,000 pound item, so I had prepared a concrete pad and there it stayed for the next 18 years. The final stop for this piece of history was in 2011 when we moved to a country home in an adjoining Pennsylvania county. We hired my nephew who owns big construction equipment to make this last move.

When I retired from my second career, I finally had time to refurbish our beloved K-6. I repainted the phone box in the original paint scheme. I also replaced most of the glass, some of which was missing or discolored. I learned it was manufactured in 1949 in Stirlingshire, Scotland. The roof had a bas relief royal crown which I painted gold to match the original paint scheme.

That old phone box from England is still a “memory generator.” Nancy and I recall the time our visiting granddaughter walked to the phone box one morning, opened the massive wooden door, saw the old rotary phone I installed and pretended to call someone. She appeared to have a real conversation although the phone was not operational. Ah, the imagination of children!

You can still buy authentic K-6 British phone boxes in the U.K from British Telecom (BT). If you are lucky to live in the U.K., you can officially ‘adopt’ the phone box that sits on your property. For purchases, BT has one approved reseller of the phone boxes, X2 Connect. The X2 website allows you to purchase, reserve and arrange delivery of either a ‘project’ phone box that needs work or a completely refurbished one. In addition, the company sells parts and maintains a map of red K-6 telephone boxes around the world.

When we sold our house, we sold the phone box to the person buying our home. It is still there, braving the elements which will eventually wear away the new paint. The glass I replaced will once again begin to show some age. But the memories of our beloved K-6 will always be fresh and new.