It's good to talk ... but folk in rural North Yorkshire are people of few words.STEPHANIE BUSARI investigates

ONLY one caller pops in to use it in an average week.

Even then their conversation is likely to be drowned out by barking dogs and roaring tractors.

For this is North Yorkshire's least used telephone box, standing in a farmyard in remote Dallowgill, near Ripon.

The farmer and his wife, Robert and Frieda Sidgwick, believe that the old-style pillar-box red phone box may have been there since 1909, when there used to be a post office on the farmyard grounds.

Ramblers from the nearby outdoor pursuits centre are most likely to use the phone box but even so, they rarely come along.

Mrs Sidgwick said: " People don't tend to come because they think it is a private phone, as it is on private land.

"But when they do use it, the dog barks so much, I think it might have put some people off !

"It does ring quite often, but it is always a wrong number," she added.

Amazingly, the box is cleaned every week by BT contractors who keep it in pristine condition - that's one clean-up for every time the phone is used.

Mervin Straughan, BT media relations officer said: "We have a commitment to the public to make sure that there is access to our pay phones. The fact that this one is used so little gives us reassurance that it is there if anyone needs to use it."

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