The Phone Box Next Door

The Telephone Box 

📞 The Great Chook Rescue of ’71

It was 1971, and the old red telephone box next to your house was the local gossip hub — not officially, of course, but it might as well have had a sign: “Eavesdroppers Welcome.” Mrs. Dellar from two houses down claimed she could tell who was having marital problems just by how hard they slammed the receiver.

Now, this phone box had seen a lot — prank calls, teenage love confessions, and one guy who used it as a changing room during footy season. But nothing topped the day it became a makeshift chook ambulance.

You see, your neighbour Trevor had a prize hen named Cheryl. She wasn’t your average chook — no, Cheryl had personality. She used to peck the postie’s boots and had once chased a Labrador down the street. One hot January afternoon, Cheryl tried to cross the road (as chooks are known to do), and in classic slapstick timing, was grazed by Trevor’s own Holden Kingswood as he backed out of the driveway.

Trevor panicked. Not knowing what to do, and with no phone in the house (this was 1971, after all), he sprinted to the red phone box. But Cheryl, being a stubborn old bird, followed him in — limping but very much alive.

So there’s Trevor, in the phone box, on the horn to the local vet, trying to explain his “chicken emergency” while Cheryl is flapping around inside like a feathered banshee. He’s yelling over the squawking, “No, she’s not dead! She’s just dramatic!”

Naturally, this attracted an audience. Half the street gathered to watch a grown man share a phone box with a chicken. Old Mrs. McGrath brought a folding chair. One of the local kids even tried to take bets on whether the hen would peck through the glass.

Eventually, the vet agreed to see her. Trevor emerged, hair wild, shirt half-unbuttoned, Cheryl clutched in his arms like the finale of a soap opera. The applause was thunderous. Someone actually cheered. Cheryl survived — she lived another five years and laid eggs with what Trevor swore were stress lines.

From that day on, the phone box was never quite the same. The paint chipped faster. It always smelled faintly like poultry. And for years, locals would walk past and mutter, “That’s where Trevor made the emergency chook call.”