Seventeen years and at least a dozen moves since I left the house I grew up in, over across town from where I live now, my own personal London police box has at last come home.

My grandfather built this for me, IIRC, for my 16th birthday, in 1989. It was originally installed in the living room of my family's house on Morgan Lane, where it had a telephone in it (the little door opens and there's a wall-mount phone jack inside) and a device for the hard-of-hearing built in that made the beacon on top flash when the phone rang. It's also equipped with a bar and some hooks for hanging up coats and hats, and at that time had one of those corrugated rubber mats for stashing muddy boots in it.

I haven't seen it, apart from spotting it in the corner of my father's storage shed, since 1993, when I moved out of that house for the last time. Since then I've never been in a stable enough domestic situation to retrieve it, or I've lived someplace with doors that were too small, or what have you. Even here I could only get it onto the porch - while my front door is 36" wide, the one leading from the porch into the house proper is only 32", and the TARDIS is 34" wide. (It's 3/4 scale, based on the blueprints in the old Doctor Who Technical Manual.)

It's a bit dirty and scuffed now, and could do with a bit of paint; it's out on the porch, so there's little point in wiring the phone gadget back up. But it's nice to have it home. (Dad did find the beacon glass for the top after we got it up here, so that'll be back in place in a day or three, depending on when he gets a chance to bring it up.)

--G.
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Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Admin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.