Derby Blog Cityvisitor.co.uk blog

A rusty old phone box is now being put to good use as a book exchange in the Derbyshire village of Little Eaton. It has proved so successful that villagers are planning on buying another telephone box. Councillors initially bought the former telephone booth from BT for just £1 and the parish council refurbished it and turned it into a book exchange for locals. Villagers can drop off and borrow old books without having to pay a penny.

The annual Derby in Bloom competition is welcoming a new competitor this year, the suburb of Chaddesden. The area will be joining in as part of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebration. Businesses and shops will be adding floral displays in red, white and blue to mark the milestone Royal occasion on the 4th June.

Charlotte Hunt, a 16 year old who struggled at school after her mother passed away, has said that she owes her place at college to charity the Prince’s Trust. The Derby teenager was predicted to fail her GCSEs but was over the moon when she opened her results and found that she had passed.

Hundreds of phone calls that are not real emergencies are made to Derbyshire police on their 999 number every week. One of the most dramatic examples of this is when a woman called the emergency number to say that she was lost in a nightclub. Around 385 calls are made to the police a day, but almost a third of these calls are not real emergencies.

Derby actor Jack O’Connell has got a new role as a Second World War soldier. The former pupil of St Benedict School in Derby will play the role in an independent British film called Shelter. The film will tell the story of three soldiers captured in the Netherlands. It will be released later in the year.