Reminders of the Past

          A parcel collection-and-despatch point has been installed recently outside our local supermarket. It offers freedom from the tyranny of waiting at home for your stuff to arrive, which is yet another convenience of modern life made possible by QR codes, apps and other jiggery pokery, the workings of which are understood by a few and just taken for granted by the rest of us.

          I’m no technophobe – I adopt and adapt willingly – but I do feel sad about the demise of some of the displaced, discarded and disused systems I grew up with. Call it nostalgia, if you like, but there was something comforting about post offices, postmen and the rigmarole and regalia they embodied. It just felt as if someone ‘responsible’ was in charge. (In fact, it very much was so, as the original Royal Mail was set up as a monarchic monopoly to ensure censorship of letters.) I remember, also, that the good old Royal Mail provided lucrative employment for us as students in the run-up to Christmas.

           A few streets away from the high-tech parcel point there is a post-box set into a wall. Its cast-iron face is pitted with age, even though it is painted resolutely red, as fresh as yesterday’s job. But it has an unusual feature, an obvious later addition, a white enamelled plate, cut to fit, that has been screwed to the flat surface around the envelope slot. It bears the grand insignia of Elizabeth Regina and, while rusting badly around the edges, conveys, in an authoritative black typeface, the following message:

NOTICE LETTERS WHICH CONTAIN COIN IF POSTED AS ORDINARY LETTERS WILL BE CHARGED ON DELIVERY WITH A SPECIAL REGISTRATION FEE OF FOURPENCE.

          The notice is plainly redundant and yet it seems that responsibility for its removal has not been assigned to any of the organisation’s current employees. My hope is that, on the contrary, its non-removal has been mandated by some official Keeper of National Treasures, for without it, we would miss that ever-present visible link to our culture, our heritage, our whacky, make-it-up-as-you-go-along spirit of “that’ll do”.

          The uninitiated (i.e. younger generations) would, if they were to stop and read it, marvel at the fact that people actually did send coins through the post, safe in the knowledge that they were under the Crown’s protection and guaranteed to be delivered as promised – or compensated for if not. And, as a footnote, don’t you love the way that the word ‘fourpence’ evolved from its forbear, ‘four pence’ and, in so doing, acquired a sonorous familiarity? So much nicer than the modern equivalent, 4p!

          You’d have to be quite contrary to deny that instant electronic transfer of funds is more convenient than physical methods. Similarly, the cell phone has been overwhelmingly adopted by the world’s population. And yet, Sir Giles Gilbert Scott’s telephone kiosk, obsolete though it plainly is, remains an essential part of the classic British streetscape – so much so that tourists queue to have their photos taken inside or beside the iconic booths set in places of historic import. There was, in the 1970s, an ill-conceived attempt to replace it with a modern design but, faced with derision from such discerning critics as Bill Bryson, who likened it to a “cheap shower stall”, the new version never really appealed to the nation’s heart and soul, though it did sort of fit with the architecture of Euston Station.

          I doubt that Amazon’s parcel facility will stand the test of time and endure as an icon of street furniture design, but should we care? It doesn’t really belong to us anyway – it’s Jeff Bezos’ baby – and it’s a case of easy come easy go, a stop-gap facility until the flying drones take over and children ask their parents, “What are those funny red boxes on the street for?”