The trashing of the iconic red phone box is one bad call In the days before the internet and mobile phones, when the price of petrol made running a car prohibitively expensive, these objects served a purpose. Their appeal, though, reached far beyond any utilitarian quality: as I strolled the streets of north Oxford, I felt a thrill at the sight of something so beautifully designed, instantly recognisable, and as thoroughly British as Big Ben. What a mistake. As the ubiquitous garish fluorescent yellow of health and safety replaces royal red, this country risks swapping tradition for a dour utilitarianism. Yet nationhood is about more than purpose; it is about tradition, ritual, and symbol. This is why Sir John Betjeman launched a campaign to protect St Pancras station from demolition in the 1960s: the station designed by George Gilbert Scott (Sir Giles's grandfather) might have no longer been central to the railway network, but the Poet Laureate instantly saw its worth - as a beautiful structure, but also as a repository of memories. Under its gables and arches, soldiers bade their loved ones farewell, evacuees fled the bombs, and workers had taken their commuter trains. Sir Giles's phone boxes may no longer be an everyday necessity, but despite what BT says, they are far from useless. Each year we spend a fortnight in August in the southernmost tip of Devon, where mobile phone signals have yet (thank goodness) to penetrate. In the village of East Prawle, the phone box is a centre of village life, offering internet access and a dependable connection to the outside world. When we queue for the box by the village green to ring relatives, friends or colleagues, the children find this quaint, while I grow misty-eyed: I can remember the many phone calls I made from just such a box, as I hoped for a bit of privacy, first at boarding school, then university. The phone boxes are so much a part of the national character that I'm sure any plan by BT to adapt them for other uses would be welcome. The compact, solid box could easily site an ATM machine, for instance; a WiFi hotspot; electric car charger; or a water fountain. But even if they were not useful, I think the iconic boxes should be preserved on national heritage grounds. I can't help think that Britain, whose heritage is the envy of the world, should guard it more jealously. Other countries do. When my husband and stepson visited Iceland recently, they were struck by how seriously its citizens took their heritage - even the elves, which, according to Nordic folklore, used to people its forests. Admittedly, they can take this celebration a bit far. At the Icelandic Phallological Museum in Reykjavik, a glass jar stands empty. According to the label, it contains the (invisible) penis of an elf. If BT is looking for yet another use for its phone boxes, here it is.