Britain’s red phone boxes have become out of date in the age of the mobile. Eight years ago there were about 17,000 across Brita

Britain’s red phone boxes have become out of date in the age of the mobile. Eight years ago there were about 17,000 across Britain, but today, in a country where almost everybody has a mobile phone,58 percent are no longer (36) profitable and 10 percent are only used once a month. In spite of this, villages across the country are stepping in to save them.
    Whether as a place to (37) exhibit art,poetry,or even as a tiny (38) library, hundreds of telephone boxes have been given a new (39 ) lease of life by local communities determined to (40) preserve a typical part of British life.
    In Waterperry, a small village near Oxford, the 120 (41) residents have filled the phone box next to the old house with a pot of flower, piles of (42) gardening and cooking magazines, and put poems on the walls. They took control of the phone box when tele-coms (43) operator BT said it was going to pull it down, (44) an announcement that caused such debate that one local woman threatened to chain herself to the box to save it. Local councilor Tricia Hallam, who came up with the idea for the phone box’s makeover,said "(45) We couldn’t let it go because it’s a landmark ,a part of our heritage".
    Only three feet by three feet wide and standing eight feet three inches tall, the telephone boxes were designed by Giles Gilbert Scott in 1936 for the 25th anniversary of the reign of King George V. (46) Painted in red to match the post boxes, they were once a defining image of England and the background to millions of tourist photographs.