Public Telephones (1985)
In 1985, the year following British Telecom’s privatisation, there were 77,000 BT payphones in public kiosks in operation in Britian. Telephone kiosks provided an everyday and an emergency service for children and adults alike. They could be essential to people who did not have a landline telephone at home. Public Telephones, a pack produced for primary school pupils aged 7-11, was also published by British Telecom Education Service. It included a children’s brochure, teacher’s notes and activity cards charting the history of public telephones in the UK from the 1880s. The front cover of the pack used an illustration of the K8 telephone kiosk, which had been introduced by the General Post Office in 1968. This kiosk model was superseded in 1985 by BT’s new KX100.
BT Group Archives: TCD 264/ES 59
