Britain's iconic red phone boxes have become obsolete in the age of the mobile -- but villages across the country are stepping in to save them, with creative flair.

　　在如今的移动通讯时代，英国标志性的红色电话亭已渐渐过时，但英国各地的小镇居民正发挥他们的聪明才智来保卫这些“红盒子”。

　　Whether as a place to exhibit art, poetry, or even as a tiny library, hundreds of kiosks have been given a new lease of life by local communities determined to preserve a quintessential part of British life.

　　红色公用电话亭被视为英国社会的文化标志，在社区居民的努力下，英国数百个电话亭获得新生，被用来展示艺术、诗歌，甚至变身为迷你图书馆。

　　In Waterperry, a small village near Oxford, the 120 residents have filled the phone box next to the old manor house with a pot of hyacinths, piles of gardening and cooking magazines, and plastered poems on the walls.

　　在牛津郡附近的沃特佩里小镇，120名居民在一个紧挨着一处古老的领主宅邸的电话亭里放上了一盆风信子、几叠园艺及厨艺杂志，并在亭壁上贴了一些诗作。

　　They took control of the kiosk when telecoms operator BT said it was going to pull it down, an announcement that sparked such uproar that one local woman threatened to chain herself to the box to save it.

　　这座电话亭曾险些被英国电信公司拆毁，但当地居民将其挽救了下来。当时电信公司要拆除电话亭的消息引发了民众的强烈不满，当地一名妇女还威胁要把自己和电话亭拴在一起来保卫它。

　　"I'd have done it," insisted Kendall Turner. "It would have been heartbreaking for the village."

　　肯德尔•特纳坚称：“要是我也会那样做。拆除电话亭会让小镇居民们很伤心。”

　　Local councillor Tricia Hallam, who came up with the idea for the phone box's makeover, said "quite a few people" would have joined her, adding: "We couldn't let it go because it's a landmark, it's part of our heritage.

　　想到改造电话亭这一办法的当地议员特里希娅•哈勒姆说，（如果要拆毁的话，）会“有很多人”加入到保卫电话亭的队伍。她说：“我们不能就让它这么没了，因为它是我们的地标，是我们的遗产之一。”

　　"We need to keep it here, it's an iconic thing, a British icon."

　　“我们要把它留在这里，它是一种标志，是英国的标志。”

　　Only three feet by three feet wide, and standing eight foot three inches tall, the kiosks were designed by Giles Gilbert Scott in 1936 for the 25th anniversary of the reign of King George V.

　　英国的红色电话亭长宽各只有3英尺，高为8英尺3英寸，是1936年加尔斯·吉尔伯特·斯哥特为纪念国王乔治五世统治25周年而设计的。

　　Painted in "Post Office red" to match the post boxes, they were once a defining image of England and the backdrop to millions of tourist photographs.

　　电话亭的颜色为“邮政红”，与英国邮政信箱的颜色相一致。这些红色电话亭曾是英国的标志性形象，也是游客们争相留影的街头一景。

　　Eight years ago there were about 17,000 across Britain, but today, in a country where almost everybody has a mobile phone, 58 percent are no longer profitable and ten percent are only used once a month.

　　八年前，英国全国共有约1.7万个电话亭，但如今英国几乎人手一部手机，58%的电话亭已不再盈利，其中10%的电话亭一个月才被使用一次。

　　（中国日报网英语点津 Julie 编辑蔡姗姗）