Question

[m31andy]

Research question - can anyone help?

It's London, 1982, and you want to leave, say, a small amount of cash, an A4 envelope/file full of 'state secrets' and a passport in a location which is accessable at all times, is not too difficult to get into, but is safe enough. Ideally security would be of the "if you have the key you can open it" as I require a third party to be able to access it (with the key, of course) It also needs to be fairly long term.

What would you use?

I suspect lockers at stations (esp. Waterloo and Victoria) would've been in the process of being removed at this time, and even if they were still available, you couldn't get away with having a key to one for three years, could you? They were strictly short term only.

PO Boxes aren't, apparently, actual boxes, unlike in the States and elsewhere. (Which is annoying because they are rather cool, actually!) Has that always been the case?

Bank safety deposit boxes, at least now, are too difficult to get into, require too much ID.

Gym/swimming lockers, I suppose aren't accessable 24 hours? Tempted to use a bathhouse (*g*) but also suspect that you'd definitely not get away with long-term use of the locker and/or the proprietor turning a blind eye to you using it, wouldn't be so impressed when other 'gents' start using it as well.

Thoughts?

Oh, and ta muchly!

Oh, oh - and if you can't guess what this is for, I'd be very, very surprised!

Comments

[burkesworks.livejournal.com]

Lockers in large railway stations were still very common in 1982, and in many instances would have been accessible 24 hours, bearing in mind there were some places outside London that did actually have train services in the middle of the night - and in theory you could hold a key for as long as you like providing you kept paying after every time you opened it.

[m31andy.livejournal.com]

Oooh. Now I do know they ripped out the Victoria lockers in the early eighties (Blame the IRA). But the locker doesn't, I suppose, have to be in London. And, thinking about it, I do remember the old lockers at Hull station. So, outside London, a station locker is much more likely. Hmm. What's close enough to the Smoke, but still would have 24 hour access?

*ponders*

[uitlander]

University library lockers. In 1987 the faculty library still had lockers operated by 10p pieces, over half of these were 'permanently owned' by certain students. I gave the faculty librarian back the key I had had secreted for 20 years last year. He perked up immediately and matched it to its old lock, which he said he could now recommission.

[m31andy.livejournal.com]

Ooh, now that's also a possibility. Except, of course, for 24 hour access. Damn. Otherwise, that would've been perfect.

[anne-l-davies.livejournal.com]

I'll wager there's bugger all security measures in place on a University Library in the early 80's - a conveniently "open" window affords 24 hour access!

[uitlander]

Ah, now 24x7 access is really a pretty recent thing. It was just one of those things that seemed impossible, like pizza delivery or Sunday opening, back in the 70s & 80s. But most Uni Libraries would be open to somewhere between 10-midnight in term, and maybe 6pm outside of it. The whole point of Sundays was to be bored out of your skull with nothing to do on you day 'off'.

[burkesworks.livejournal.com]

Reading certainly would have had them, along with through the night services.

[burkesworks.livejournal.com]

Hmm... and thinking of Reading kind of brings me in a commodius vicus of recirculation to Caversham; and while I cannot speak for the BBC's monitoring station there, I *can* honestly state that it was possible to enter Bush House via the staff entrance at pretty ungodly hours at the time (there used to be bunks down in the building that were designed for foreign-language BBC staff, and at the time they did double duty as a very handy place to doss down). Can't remember if there were lockers but I'll wager there were.

[m31andy.livejournal.com]

*grin*

Probably a little too high profile - but a surprising anecdote!