Bigger On The Inside Transcript (Scotland: A Scottish History Podcast)
Note: Scotland is produced and designed to be heard, not read. We encourage you, if you are able, to listen to the audio, which provides insight which is significantly different to how it appears on the page. Transcripts are generated from the original scripts of the episodes. They may be slightly different to the corresponding audio and may contain errors.
Scotland - A Scottish History Podcast
Episode 61 - Bigger On The Inside
It is 1930. Well it might be, you know, wibbly wobbly timey-wimey.
You rush through the freezing fog, over cobbled streets toward safety. Who knows what awaits in the dark, what other-worldly, unknowable, eldritch horrors are waiting to grab you, or disintegrate you, or melt your brain, or turn you into a mindless, mechanical zombie.
It’s all bad really.
Your footsteps are heavy as you round another corner, sure you left it around here somewhere. If you didn’t plunge it into singularities as often as you do, or crash it, or have it ripped apart in order to protect the very fabric of the universe, or just straight up forget where you parked it then you’d appreciate it if it would come and get you out of these scrapes once in a while. Deus ex machina is your favourite kind of machina after all.
There it is, it looms out of the gloom, its light pulsing gently as your run breaks into a sprint and a grin widens across your face. Not tonight unknowable eldritch horrors, you think to yourself as you throw yourself against the painted box and caress the sign on the door with your hand.
POLICE. FIRE. AMBULANCE.
Wait a second, this box is red. And it’s the same size on the inside as it is on the outside.
Ah... crap.
This is Scotland, a podcast about history and where we made it. I’m Michael Park.
It is 1891. This isn’t a story about a wild-eyed doctor who travels through time and space. It’s actually a story about whistles and rattles.
Glasgow, Scotland’s biggest city, is expanding and in 1891 has doubled in size to the North, South and West. The city now sprawls over eighteen and a half miles in all directions and only Partick, Govan and Kinning Park remain independent of Glasgow’s control.
With that, the area that the City of Glasgow Police had to patrol had increased exponentially. Not only that they were covering areas of vastly different economic class and even construction.
And if something kicked off in the city? You’d better hope that there’s another polis within earshot to hear the ear-splitting whistle that you put to your mouth because if they’re not then you’re up a creek without a paddle, sonny-jim.
The humble whistle is at the forefront of policing. Produced by the ACME company, who also make all of Wily E Coyote’s explosives, they were introduced in London only a few years ago - sometime in the 1880s - and are long tubes which can be heard up to half a mile away when you blow into them.
Except in Glasgow, where you’re handed what they call a snail whistle which looks like the kind that a football referee would use. Which isn’t surprising since many of the first football referees were also in the police.
Figures.
So the snail whistle isn’t quite as effective as the one they use in that London but it’s better than the old rattle which used to be the signal that something was going wrong.
Your instructions as a young polis are quite clear. See crime. Blow whistle. Shout, oi you. Give chase.
But Glasgow is changing all the time and if you need to call into headquarters to ask for a detective because there’s been a murder, or get instructions, or anything that’s more complicated than blowing into a whistle in the dead of night… then what do you do?
The answer doesn’t take long to come. You are introduced to a huge, hexagonal, cast iron box that looks like a mutant post box, painted scarlet.
Standing a good few feet taller than you - even in your helmet - it has wrought iron railings around its top and is crowned with a stunningly ornate gas lamp.
They call it the Glasgow Police Box which you think is a pretty boring name but you don’t say anything.
The lamp is lit remotely, miles away from the central police station. It tells you that you need to call in.
Call in?
That’s right, this big ol’ box is hooked up with a telephone. You’ve never used a telephone but you’ve seen them in some of the big houses - usually ones that are crime scenes - they’re not exactly on every street corner.
You pick up the phone and that’s it. The future is here. Suddenly policing becomes coordinated and officers are able to be moved and controlled from staff working at a central point.
These boxes are revolutionary but it takes years until they start to spring up all over the country, using new fangled things like electric lights and new telephony technology to make policing easier.
By the time they’re widely adopted they’re moving away from just signal posts for polis. They become tiny little police stations with phones that the public can use to call in reports.
They don’t though.
In fact, most people don’t know that the boxes are for them to use and local forces have to set up mini exhibitions to encourage people to use them. They even attach little plaques explaining what the box is for to the doors.
And these Police Public Call Boxes are different in every city. Many take the Glasgow design because you could buy it off the shelf, but cities like Edinburgh go their own way, making larger hut-like structures.
Some are red, some are green, but most are blue.
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MIDROLL
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It is 1928, and a Scottish architect has been building police stations in London for years. In fact, it’s his one job. Gilbert Mackenzie Trench designs and builds police stations.
Until one day he’s asked to design something else. A box for one single police officer to sit in and check reports, write up notes or even have a cup of tea while waiting to be called out.
It’s to be big enough to contain a phone, accessible to the public on the outside and the officer on the inside, a little stool and enough space to write.
The Metropolitan Police want it to be smaller than the sheds in Edinburgh. It has to be sleek, modern… and it has to be blue.
Oh and it has to be made of concrete.
And the rest is history. Or future. Or… time is difficult. But in 1963 the BBC were looking around for a ship for their new science fiction show, instead of taking a leaf out of the sci fi book of sleek futuristic rocket ships, they instead took something much closer to home… and much cheaper.
The Mackenzie Trench Police Public Call Box became the TARDIS, Time and Relative Dimensions in Space, a time-travelling spaceship with a busted chameleon circuit and Doctor Who became a phenomenon.
And in the 1930s, back where it all started in Glasgow, they bought Mackenzie Trench boxes to replace the aging signal boxes.
And they painted them red.
Until the 1960s… when a wild-eyed doctor who travels through time and space encouraged them to repaint them all blue.
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You’ve been listening to Scotland, it was written and produced by me, Michael Park and is a production of Be Quiet Media.
The music for every episode of Scotland is by our very own timelord, Mitch Bain, you can check out more of his work at mitchbain.bequiet.media.
Jamie Mowat does amazing illustrations for us which you can see in our episode art. See more and buy prints at tidlin.com.
Scotland is supported by Chris Lingwood and listeners like you on Patreon. You can get loads more from us for as little as three dollars a month at: patreon.com/bequietmedia
You can find out more about the show and read transcripts on our website, scotlandpodcast.net and we’re on twitter, facebook and instagram too. Find us by searching Scotland - A Scottish History Podcast.
Thanks for listening. Look after each other, wear a mask, get vaccinated if you can… we’ll see you next time.