IT’S one of Scotland’s smallest libraries.
Stacked with the latest best-sellers – as well as some golden oldies – a defunct phone box in rural Perthshire has proved a hit with bookworms.
Plonked beside a field in the sleepy hamlet of Bendochy, near Blairgowrie, the unusual sight is the result of a community buy-out.
And it’s proved so popular that locals are planning to install an extra shelf to cope with the groaning weight of donated books.
Villagers snapped up the telephone kiosk for just £1 as part of a nationwide BT scheme to bring neglected phone boxes back into use.
In a flash of inspiration, they turned it into a library and tourist information point.
Pensioner Ella Benzies, a retired primary school teacher who has lived in Bendochy for 21 years, has been a regular user from the start.
She said: “I’m quite a keen reader – I go along with books and take books out.
“It’s a great idea. These phone boxes used to be everywhere for the use of remote communities.
“People also put plants inside during the summer that people can swap – my late husband used to put in tomato plants.
“And the community council put notices in about their meetings – though it’s mostly just the books.”
Neighbour Graeme McNeill, a retired doctor, said the close-knit community meant there was no need for fines – or any other formal system.
The 72-year-old added: “It just operates on a trust basis.
“We all know each other. We know all the neighbours.
“Everyone puts in books that they have read, and it’s had things like CDs as well.”
And keen reader Patrick Hamilton, 74, said: “The books change a lot.
“The Eastern European berry-pickers use it, too.
“There’s more books than there’s room for.
“I take books out before I go on holiday.”
As well as blood-soaked thrillers and well-thumbed pot-boilers, cookery books and self-help manuals have proved popular with villagers, who help to maintain, clean and stock the library.
And passing lorry drivers have even been spotted perusing the crammed shelves as they deliver goods to nearby farms.
Plans are afoot to give the kiosk a fresh lick of paint in the summer – as well as installing an extra shelf to deal with the growing mountain of books.
More than 3000 phone boxes have been adopted around the UK since BT’s “Adopt a Kiosk” scheme was introduced in 2008.
Some have been turned into defibrillator kiosks which can be used to save the lives of cardiac arrest victims, while others have become art galleries or mini coffee shops.
But the Perthshire library is surely among the best-kept and most-used of the UK’s transformed call boxes.
A spokesman for BT said: “We will only remove a payphone if there is an alternative kiosk within 400 metres or where a local authority has approved a removal following consultation.”
BT currently operates 4800 kiosks in Scotland – with 155 adopted by communities in the last eight years.
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