I began photographing honesty boxes in 2008. I spent a couple of summers in my old campervan driving, eating and camping in Suffolk, Essex, Somerset and Sussex.
I love coming across an honesty box, not just for the delight of the home grown and the childish excitement and memories of playing shop but the discovery of the simple, unpretentious, local and handmade in a world saturated with high tech, fake news and globalisation. I find myself being just as interested in their construction as in the produce being sold. These funny little roadside stalls often cobbled together from bits and bobs are unmanned but full of the personality of their inventors. Some shout at you with signs and instructions while others seem to mock with their very simplicity; an empty ice cream tub with a stick of rhubarb. There are quaint ones and efficient ones, the elaborate and the out of stock.
Honesty means more than not lying; it is about speaking and acting truthfully. As an honesty box creator I know that it’s not done to make a massive profit. In times of glut, when you can’t eat another broad bean or your courgettes are turning into marrows before your eyes, its time to share. You accept that there will always be a few who won’t pay but on the whole most people are honest. According to an article in the New York Times about honesty, ‘we cheat when we are fairly certain we can get away with it… we do it more if we see other people doing it and we do it less if we are reminded to be honest.’ So maybe it’s the uncertainty of being watched from behind that twitching curtain or perhaps it’s the nostalgic feel-good factor from playing shop, or the untainted natural beauty of their rural locations that remind us that honesty is indeed the best policy.
