The battleground at the heart of a struggle between an 89-year-old man and a multi-billion pound multinational is a small junction in a Norfolk village, where a red phone box stands. And at the red phone box, sheltering from the wind, is Derek Harris. Last month, he learned that BT (formerly British Telecom) was threatening to close the phone box in the village of Sharrington, where he has lived for 50 years, when he saw it on the agenda of the parish council meeting. “I thought: ‘I’d better do something about this,’” says Harris.
He has described it as a “David and Goliath” campaign. It is that, and – as becomes clear on this sunlit but biting February day – so much more. We will talk mortality and reprieves, heritage and value. I’ll leave with a renewed sense of how it’s possible to feel real affection for an inanimate object, and why having a mission matters.
