Colour tattoo of a blue police box in front of a dark, swirling textured background with a circular ring and red markers, on the upper arm.

Blue police box in a swirling vortex on an arm

Upper arm · Mixed · Photo

A blue police box sits at the centre of the design, with its windows and panels outlined in dark ink. Behind it, a dark, mottled and streaked background spreads outward in black and grey shading, framed by a circular ring with small red triangular markers along its edge. The tattoo is shown on a bare arm against a dark surface, with the design filling most of the frame.

Upper arm Police box Ring Swirl Circle

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Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

You are the night porter at Hollin Bridge, and the last train has long gone when the platform lamps start to hum. At twenty to three a blue police box stands on platform four, where there was nothing at ten. Its lamp is dark and its paint is the colour of a swimming baths at dusk. The little tin sign on the door shows a word you can't quite read, because the letters keep rearranging themselves like passengers shuffling for a seat.

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You walk round it twice, your torch sliding off the glass each time. From inside comes the clink of a kettle and a voice, patient and faintly amused, asking whether you've seen a grey umbrella. You say you haven't. "Then look harder at the rails," it says. Beyond the box the night air goes grey and streaky, like rain across a windscreen, and a brass ring set with small red markers turns slowly above the tracks. The departures board behind you flickers through every timetable it has ever displayed.

The signal on the far end turns green without anyone touching the lever. You understand, the way you understand a missed connection, that the box is waiting for a fare and that it has already decided who it will be. You have a shift to finish and a cold mug of tea on the desk, and none of it seems to matter very much.

When you look down, the grey umbrella is lying on the bench where the bench was empty a minute ago. You pick it up, dry as a biscuit, and hand it through the door. The door closes with a sigh, and the platform clock still says ten to three.