Watch the hilarious moment a Helford villager picked up a phone box after Charlie Peters and Miriam Cates chanced a surprise on-air call to the village.
Cornish locals have been relying on the old-school method of communication amid a signal blackout – and the People’s Channel thought to give them a ring this morning.
After 100-mile-an-hour winds which knocked out power and left 28,000 customers across Cornwall without access to broadband services, people are flocking to the old-school method.
Earlier this morning, the presenting duo called up the box but, to their disappointment, no one picked up.
However, the pair’s luck all changed when Tony answered with a tentative “hello” this time around, with Charlie and Miriam absolutely delighted over their success.
Although Tony admitted to not being a village local, he said he stays in the town quite often and has felt the impact of the village blackout.
“When was the last time you used a phone box before today?” Miriam asked, still absolutely reeling at the on-air ordeal.
“Before today, ome time ago,” Tony chuckled back, adding “there was absolutely no signal”.
Cornish locals have been relying on the old-school method of communication amid a signal blackout
|
GB NEWS
“Are you a fan of GB News?” Charlie asked. “Because a lot of people staying connected to their communities, they’ve lost maybe their internet services.
“All they’ve got really is the telly and the phone box as well.”
Down the line, Tony added: “Yeah, the phone box here. When I first saw it, it all looked rather quaint and I thought ‘oh, that’s nice’.
“And, as I’m down here quite often, the amount I’ve seen this phone box used even without the storms and outages.
Cornwall has been hit by storms throughout January and into February
|
GETTY
“People passing by with no phone signal at least can phone back and say they’ve had a problem with the ferry, or they can’t get to where they were going to be.”
“Is there anything else you think the phone box might be used for today? Maybe ordering a takeaway? Who knows?” Miriam laughed.
“Yeah, people, when the weather was bad and they had no phones, this was their communication,” Tony added.
“I’ve just been chatting with the dog walker, who was saying that she couldn’t tell people because she was out of communications, and said how she heard that she couldn’t come and walk dogs.”
After wrapping up their chat, Miriam wondered whether children know how to use phone boxes anymore, saying, “It’s been so long since they were a part of normal life”.
“Kids walk past them and wonder what they’re for,” she exclaimed.
A spokesman for BT Openreach explained the weather conditions had hampered the completion of some critical overhead work in Cornwall.
The severe weather conditions which caused the outage have been exacerbated by the effects of Storms Ingrid and Chandra, piling onto the disruption caused by Goretti.