IT was with a tinge of nostalgic sadness that I read of BT appealing for communities to adopt a phone box.

Once a lifeline of communication, the humble red box has been rendered obsolete by the rise of mobile phone use, with the number of calls made from old-fashioned payphones tumbling by 90% in the past decade.

Now, as part of their Adopt A Kiosk scheme, BT are asking communities to take ownership of their local box for a £1 donation, with hundreds up for grabs in Scotland. More than 5800 have been adopted by communities across the UK since 2008, with old boxes being converted into myriad new guises, including mini-libraries, tiny art museums, information centres and even cake shops. A phone box in Devon boasts the world’s smallest nightclub, which must make for an intimate evening out.

BT will continue to provide electricity to power the light for adopted kiosks, free of charge to communities. Where electricity is available, adopted boxes can be used to house defibrillators – an increasingly popular and potentially life-saving adaptation.

This recycling project should be welcomed, of course. I just can’t believe that in the space of just one generation, the communications landscape has changed so much.

I recall as a student hoarding 10p pieces to call my boyfriend once a week. This was a complex operation and had to be carefully co-ordinated as I had to find a phone box that was free and that worked at a precise time so that I could call him at the solitary phone box in his home village when it was likely to be free. We were fortunate that “his” kiosk took incoming calls, which was unusual. I’m not sure how we would have spoken otherwise. What did we do the rest of the time to communicate? Well, we wrote letters. Lots of them. This seems almost alien now.

Flash forward more than 30 years and we talk on the phone or text several times a day. Nothing particularly deep and meaningful, admittedly. Mostly grocery lists. But what happened to us in the intervening years that made us so chatty? Perhaps we’re making up for lost phone calls.

Meanwhile, it’s our student son’s birthday this week. This is timely, as he “needs” a new phone. I thought back to all those years ago of being phoneless and happy and questioned this need. But he’s right. So much of life now is digitally dependent. Not that we often manage to actually speak to him by telephone, you understand. Clearly, the best way to get him on his mobile is via Facebook. It seems it is so last century to talk on the telephone. Apparently, that’s why God gave us Snapchat.

I have two phones – one for work and one for personal use. If I happen to leave home without them, I admit my day becomes infinitely more tricky to navigate. I confess to even feeling more than a tad on edge and a teeny bit tetchy.

But this is a world away from wandering a city’s dark, dreich streets in search of a payphone that was a) unoccupied, b) working and c) hadn’t been trashed or urinated/puked in.

Perhaps, after all, my nostalgia for phone boxes is out of order.