THIS truly sensational picture has been sent in by Gillian Crawford of Bishop Auckland following the photo in Memories 349 of an RAC roadside phone box at Blackwell.

Gillian’s picture, taken by her father John Crawford in the 1950s, shows an AA phone box – Box 577 – at Whorlton, near Barnard Castle. Best of all, beside it is an AA birdbox.

Box 577 was on the A67 Darlington to Barnard Castle road, slightly east of the turning down to Whorlton. It was one of 862 boxes that the AA had installed by 1962. AA members had a universal key so that if they broke down, they could summon help from any box – the telephone number of Box 577 was Whorlton 260.

We’d love to see pictures of any emergency phonebox; we’d be ecstatic if anyone had a photo of any other animal or bird sanctuary with a motoring organisation’s logo on it.