Red telephone boxes occupy an inalienable space in British culture, which is probably why so many survive, emptied of workings save for steel shelves where directories once lived, and gazing blankly outwards like so many redundant mill windows.

They are quaintly anachronistic in a world of mobile technology, but we can't bear to part with these wrought iron and glass shells because they once bespoke long-distance communication, with all of its attendant promise.

They bear meaning in both aesthetic and practical terms, and they look good on the edge of a village green, or as unlikely adjuncts to startlingly modern shopping centres, as conspicuous as if they'd been deposited by visitors from Mars.

Telephone boxes are a metaphor for a disappearing age of spasmodic connections, queues, bent coins, and world records for cramming bodies into confined spaces. And when you finally got through to your Auntie Elsie in Melbourne, you needed a pile of cash the height of a small child to prevent the regular pips from turning into a monotone flatline.

State of the art in their own time, these edifices now embody the accumulative historical weight of museum pieces. And the loss, if loss it is, is serendipitous for Settle Stories' 2018 festival, whose theme spans the old and the new. A meeting of the thriving traditional art of storytelling and the digital age, this year's festival finds the perfect conduit for communication in a once redundant telephone box on Settle's Duke Street.

Purchased from BT by Settle Stories in 2017, and restored in time for its 2018 festival launch, the telephone box, renamed the 'Listening Gallery', will become the permanent home of an ever-changing range of audio storytelling exhibitions aimed at families with children.

For Charles Tyrer, Communications and Events Manager of Settles Stories, it couldn't be easier, or more intriguing:

'You'll go in, look at a story menu, dial the number of the story you wish to listen to and enjoy!  The first exhibition is 'My Favourite Doll' - a collection of stories from people of all ages locally talking about their favourite doll or teddy bear.'

Amazing what you might find in 'phone boxes these days...and a welcome change from Dial-a-Disc and the Speaking Clock!

The Listening Gallery is free and opens at 5pm on Friday 6th April.
settlestories.org.uk/festival