Paul Curtis was having a quiet Friday evening. He’d decided to stay in and keep his elderly cat company. As he reclined on his couch with his ancient and arthritic cat contentedly curled up on his lap he read an old book that had come down to him from his grandfather. The story was ridiculous swashbuckling and daring do that he had read before, more than once. He read it yet again to enjoy the feel of the leather binding, the vanilla smell of the yellowing pages and the sense of nostalgic connection to his late father and grandfather.

There was a knock at his apartment door.

Visible from the graveyard and sharing its name with the same martyr, St Pancras, is the sister station to King’s Cross, a Victorian gothic masterpiece built by Sir George Gilbert Scott. Just under half a century after this station opened, the architect’s son, Giles Gilbert Scott had entered a competition to design a telephone box. He trod around the graveyard of St Pancras Old Church, in the shadow of his father’s masterpiece, and found inspiration: the central domed structure of [Sir John] Soane’s tomb.