The strange case of the Christmas stamps missing from post offices
sir – I found that a local post office had only two books of second-class Christmas stamps available. I bought one and left the last one for someone else, as I was told that there would be no more. The post office had received its quota for the year.
Why are Christmas stamps rationed? These stamps are still valid after Christmas so there is no good reason for this stupid restriction. Elisabeth Young
Westleton, Suffolk
sir – On Monday I stood in long queues at two post offices three miles apart. In each instance they ran out of second-class stamps before I could be served. The second said they had no idea when they would get more stamps.
Christmas is less than two weeks away and people wish to send cards. Jane Glover
Ferndown, Dorset
sir – Surprise, surprise, it’s winter and we have had some snow. There has been no sign of the postman, either delivering the mail or collecting from the two postboxes in the village, which are stuffed like Christmas turkeys.
However, I have just seen the milkman returning from his round, we have received parcels we had ordered online and, best of all, the builders working on our house arrived at 7.30 yesterday morning.
Come on Royal Mail – it’s only a bit of snow. Jennifer Grover
Great Kingshill, Buckinghamshire
sir – A supplier sent a parcel to me on Tuesday last week, using Royal Mail’s signed-for first-class service. It still hadn’t arrived on Saturday morning.
My supplier, in desperation, sent me another package, same contents, on Friday afternoon, using a privately run competitor. It arrived next morning. The cost was lower.
I grew up in the Seventies and I remember pre-privatisation dysfunction. Unlike the Labour Party, I cannot imagine that renationalising Royal Mail will improve its performance. Kim Thonger
Finedon, Northamptonshire
sir – It wasn’t until opening a sealed box of Christmas cards, bought at the local Sainsbury’s, that I found out the envelopes were matt black.
I have always been under the impression Christmas was about birth rather than death. Maurice Palfrey
Barnstaple, Devon sir – I find the increasing use of dark-coloured envelopes extremely irritating. In order to ensure that the postal authorities can make out the delivery address, one is often forced to use a white label. Mike Alston
Maidenhead, Berkshire
sir – Max Harris (Letters, December 12) writes that he found supermarket Christmas cards were “made in China, heaven help us!” I respectfully suggest that heaven has already helped China, which for decades has numbered many more professing Christians among its population than members of its Communist Party.
Could buying Christmas cards that bear this stamp of origin not be seen as an expression of solidarity with our Chinese co-religionists?
Lt-col Nicholas Cooper (retd) Barford Saint Martin, Wiltshire