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According to Tigg who was told this by the travel writer Pete McCarthy (it must be true) the post box nearest to my flat is one of the oldest in the country. Next to what was once a rather eccentric greetings card shop it has now morphed into a pretty reasonable late night, fast food takeaway; with contrasting bins.
Looking around the city, talking about, drawing and measuring up post boxes I have come to realise that there are quite major differences to their designs. What I think of as A Pillar Box is the National Standard pillar box (1859) but there are many variations. It was Anthony Trollope, the novelist, a Post Office surveyor at the time who first introduced them, to the Channel Islands in 1853. These were red, but subsequent post boxes were painted dark green.
In an attempt to unify the design a factory in Birmingham was asked to be the manufacturer. Unfortunately the instructions they were given were wrongly measured, so the first four boxes were eight feet (2.4 metres) tall. It also had a vertical slot for the letters.

www.postalheritage.org.uk/history


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Marital infidelities in French ‘end of the (last) century’ novels are maintained via Le Petit Blue, a pneumatic postal network that ran around central Paris from mid nineteenth century until the 1980’s. Though I’ve got the occasional glimpse of them in department stores and banks I had thought it was only a French thing but apparently the ‘Despatch’ system was developed for banking information in London, where there were on-street pneumatic post boxes and even pneumatic links into people’s homes. You placed your letter into a large lead capsule then they were then blown to the next station. There was even a human scale version tested between Holborn and Euston. In New York someone built a secret pneumatic mail system that went under Broadway. NASA’s Houston control center used them during the first moon landings. Prague still has a 55km network of piping in place but it is inoperative due to flood damage a couple of years ago.

www.dself.dsl.pipex.com/MUSEUM/COMMS/pneumess/pneu…


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Quite a Sebaldian day. On a mission across town to see a friend, went into the grim building in which he works, up the lift, knocked on the door of his office. “Come in” only to be confronted by a room full of hand made shoes, some very elaborate. Baffling. A seriously pale woman emerged from behind some sheleves, asked me if I was OK, I explained that I was looking for Mick, had he left? She said that I had got the wrong floor, he was directly above. As I went back along the corridor, she called me back, “Are you Jonathan Swain, did you ever live at 55 Vere Rd?”, “No” “That’s odd, I lived there for about five years, we were getting mail delivered with your name all the time, no-one ever collected it. It’s probably still there.” she wrote the address down on the back of a card. Curiously when I mentioned this incident to Mick later, he looked at the photograph and said that he had actually met ‘Max’ Sebald whilst paddling in the sea at Clacton.


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All the knitting groups that I have dropped in on in the last few weeks have been wonderful. Spangly and warm. Supportive energy, full of wit and humourous goading. But in, clack clack, clack clack, an anecdote, clack clack, thrust, clack, parry, clack, the punchline, fall around laughing, clack clack, clackety clack. A real treat.
It’s not just up-close social either, through the internet knitters have become an international energy field. Mainly coming via the USA where there are a lot of websites offering free patterns, chat rooms, beginners advice and youtube videos of different techniques and stitches etc. The same energy exists online as it does in the backroom of pubs. Fantastic. For starters check out www.ravelry.com or Purl, my local woolshop, www.purl-brighton.co.uk


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I know it’s a sewing thing, but today I bought a tape measure for my pencil case. My tool of choice for the next few knitting weeks.

Whilst I was in the Fabric shop, I couldn’t help drifting off into the sensual joys of the place. It’s the kind of place you don’t mind queuing because there is always something to look at and people always ask the staff mind boggling questions. The gentleman ahead of me in the queue looked out of place, well cut suit, groomed silver beard and solicitor spectacles. Portly chap, who asked for a metre of wide elastic for his pajama bottoms but then asked if they would take him on as an assistant in the shop as he’d always loved the place, he was willing to work there for nothing! If he hadn’t said it, I would have.


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