487...

Don't switch off this isn't just another post about AA boxes, it's a true story.

AA box 487 can be found on Dunmail Raise on the A591 between Keswick and Ambleside, Cumbria, England. It is perhaps, and maybe always was, the most picturesque of AA boxes, sitting proudly in the magnificent beauty of the Lake District.

This picture was taken by my old friend Glyn Bailey whilst he was on a very recent walking holiday with his two sons Tom and George in the Lakes. I’ve passed it several times over the years and when I heard that Glyn was staying nearby asked him to take a picture for me and he graciously agreed.

For a brief period back in my childhood, during the bitter winter of 1963, this AA box became almost the only topic of conversation at our house in King’s Close. Speculation on what had happened in the box was rife, and spoken of in low voices by my mum and ‘aunty’ Clara as they drank their cups of hot tea at the table in our gloomy kitchen as the snow continued to fall heavily outside. I overheard some of it, most of it, and to this day I can’t drive past box 487 without recalling the story of Josh Winstanley and the tragedy that I heard about as my mum and her friend chatted at that long-ago kitchen table.

Back in the winter of 1963, the year of the big snow, a bus broke down a mile or so from the box on Dunmail Rise. Fortunately the bus was empty of passengers and only the driver, Josh Winstanley, was aboard when a fierce storm set in. At first Josh wasn’t worried by the snow, but after three hours of continual snowstorm he decided to make his way to the small farmhouse that stood close to the AA box, a little way along the road from the bus, and seek shelter from the terrible storm that raged around him.

It took him about an hour to walk a little less than a mile, strong winds and drifting snow hampering, and at times almost halting, his progress. When he arrived at the farmhouse the doors were locked and the windows shuttered against the storm and the tenant, Frederick Chadderton, fearing becoming snowbound, had left that morning to stay in the relative security of Keswick with his Mother, Clara Brunswick, a twice widowed shopkeeper.

There was no way into the farmhouse and meanwhile, the storm had worsened. Josh considered making his way back to his abandoned bus but immediately realised that the total white-out conditions of the storm would make this far too dangerous; it would be impossible to find the bus and it was almost nightfall, there was no going back.

There was only one thing for it. Josh had his car keys with him, his car was parked at the bus station in Keswick, he’d been looking forward to the end of his shift and driving home to his wife Molly. Obviously this was now impossible but he did have an AA box key on his heavy key ring. He’d been an AA member for almost two years after buying a 1957 Hillman Minx convertible. It was his pride and joy, and joining the AA had seemed like the sensible thing to do even though Josh was no stranger to the workings to be found beneath a car bonnet. Josh decided that he’d have to shelter in the AA box until the storm subsided; at least he’d be out of the biting wind, after all the storm couldn’t last much longer.

Josh unlocked the box struggling to break through the ice that was frozen to the brass lock and, tugging the door closed against the storm behind him, stepped into the darkness making ready for the long cold night ahead.

Unfortunately for Josh it wasn’t until almost four days and three long nights later that the storm subsided and the South Lakes Mountain Rescue crew were able to get through the snow to find him. A snow plough had reported Josh’s bus abandoned on the A591, almost up to the top deck in a drift of snow. They began a search immediately.

Less than two hours later Josh was discovered frozen to death in the AA box, he’d been dead for at least two days, his hand frozen to the receiver as if trying to make a call but the weight of the snow had brought down all of the lines within a seven mile radius of the Dunmail Raise box, AA box 487.

Some say that if you stand outside the box at night on the anniversary of his death you will hear him asking: ‘Operator, are you there? Are you there operator?’

Of course she never is. Others would say that it is only the wind.

On the morning that Glyn visited the box for me our idea was that he would get there early, before six, and pose almost naked outside the box clutching only an OS map to hide his embarrassment. Unfortunately the weather on that day was so bad he had to give up on the idea and he took this picture from the warmth and safely of his car. That’s the thing with the weather in the Lakes - you never know when some bad stuff is going to set in and spoil your plans - as Josh Winstanley found out to his cost back in the long cold winter of 1963.