When nature calls - pensioner turns old red phone box into toilet

A pensioner has come up with an unusual way to re-use an old red phone box - he's turned it in into a toilet.

John Long, 73, who lives near Taunton, Somerset, has converted the phone cubicle, once a familiar sight on Britain's streets, into a privy.

The retired salesman said: "I've done lots of projects, but this is one of the biggest. It's worked out extremely well - better than expected.

"I've wanted a red telephone box for years and I didn't have an outside toilet, so I thought I could combine the two.

"To be honest, I probably use it more often than the internal toilet now. It's just so convenient."

Mr Long spent months transforming the telephone box and even crept out at night to measure another box down the road to check everything would fit.

"I took a pan to a red telephone kiosk down the road, sat on it, hoping and praying no-one would come along and take me off to a nut house," he said.

Mr Long found a box in a reclamation yard in Carhampton.

It is now fully equipped with a porcelain lavatory pan, hand basin, high-level cistern, frosted glass panes, a heater and even a red tennis ball on the end of the toilet chain, to match the box.

Mr Long joked: "Because of the high-level cistern, the water comes down like an avalanche.

"I like to fiddle about in the garage and just thought an outhouse would be ideal."

Despite their decline in numbers in recent years, the red telephone box regularly tops polls as one of Britain's most iconic structures.

The Post Office first introduced red phone boxes in the 1920s designed by Sir Gilbert Scott.