Champions of tradition, from pillar to post
Thanks to enthusiasts, every letter box in the country will soon be catalogued. Sadie Levy Gale and Joe Shute report
For 20 years, Debbie Jones would walk the streets of Birmingham in her Royal Mail standard issue fleece, mailbag in hand. As a postie on her daily rounds in the city’s Jewellery Quarter she would barely notice the post boxes she collected letters from.
And then one day she began to look a little closer. Suddenly she started spotting Elizabeth II Type K pillar boxes and others bearing the insignia of King George V. A few streets away there were post boxes dating back to the reign of Queen Victoria. The mundane Brummie cityscape became transformed into a bold red jigsaw piecing together centuries of British history.
At least that is how Jones and her fellow members of the Letter Box Study Group see it. After joining the society in 2006, she has now travelled the length and breadth of Britain, logging post boxes wherever she finds them.
For most of us, though, even in a country famous for its eccentric pastimes, cataloguing post boxes is the most niche of all hobbies. But where we may not give them a second glance, the Letter Box Study Group knows each depository intimately. And 2016 marks not just the 40th anniversary of the group’s inception but also the date in which it expects to fulfil its ultimate aim: to catalogue every single post box in the British Isles. Of an estimated 115,500 scattered around the country, there are only 2,000 left to go. The mission is known as Project Zero.
The fact that the 400 or so members of the group are trying to log all the post boxes in the UK might appear odd, given that the Royal Mail already boasts a comprehensive list.
But according to the 48-year-old Jones, “they may know where they are but they don’t know what they are”.
That is where the Letter Box Study Group comes in. It has devised an intricate system of numbering for each particular type; be it wall box, pillar box or lamp box. Most bear the insignia of the reigning monarch at the time of manufacture. Members also scout for extra screw holes, signatures and patterns on the metal. In total, the group estimates there are close to 600 different types.
To log a post box, a photograph and detailed notes are taken, which are then added to a mammoth online database. Earlier this year, the group’s activity featured in a book, Dull Men of
Great Britain, but in fact one third of its members, like Debbie Jones, are women.
“You can get very involved when you go into the minute detail,” she says. “I’m just fascinated by them.”
Earlier this year, Jones made the two-hour drive from Birmingham to Wiltshire for the sole purpose of surveying the post boxes in the area. Others have clocked up many more miles.
The chairman of the group, Andrew Young, a 61-year-old father of two from Warrington, recalls with fondness a trip to Glasgow in 2000. In a few days in Scotland he registered half a dozen Edward VIII boxes – the holy grail of letter box collecting as that monarch was on the throne for only 11 months before abdicating. There are just 160 in the country.
The youngest of the post box collectors, however, comes in the shape of a 10-year-old schoolboy from Staines in Middlesex. Thomas first became interested by the gold pillar boxes repainted in celebration of Britain’s Olympic stars of 2012. He joined the Letter Box Study Group a year-and-a-half ago and his mum is now often to be found ferrying him to visit post boxes at weekends and in school holidays.
“I have seen hundreds,” he says. “I take a photograph on my mum’s phone and then put them on a file in my
‘The group estimates there are close to 600 different types’
computer, ranking them by the date I saw them. My friends are more into football, celebrities and pop music – that sort of thing. But I just find them really interesting.”
His favourites are the Ludlow wall boxes and the “Hovis Top”, whose crown is domed like a loaf of bread.
For Simon Vaughan-Winter, the newsletter editor of the study group, the most attractive design is the Penfold pillar box, a hexagonal creation which celebrates its 150th anniversary this year.
The 62-year-old has been a member of the group since 1977 but says his wife, Janine, still regards the hobby with “amused tolerance”.
During one surveying trip to Rosson-Wye he recalls lying on the pavement to photograph a manufacturer’s name he had spotted on the base of a box. When a traffic warden came to check if he was conscious, his wife who was standing nearby denied that she even knew him.
Some, however, have forged stronger bonds over post boxes, and members talk of a close camaraderie over their shared passion. There have been two marriages among the group in the last ten years alone.
And the importance of the Letter Box Study Group is growing. Now recognised by Royal Mail as “the only organisation in existence to have a comprehensive system for defining and numbering British letter boxes” – they are key in the fight against the theft of British post boxes which have become a prized collector’s item the world over.
With some classic pillar boxes being offered on the black market for up to £6,000 each, last summer the Royal Mail and Historic England unveiled a new arsenal of high-tech tools, including forensic and electronic tagging.
The growing number of thefts means that even when the last post box is ticked off this year, the Letter Box Study Group will then have to revert back to the beginning to categorise replacements – a process akin to the never-ending painting of the Forth Road Bridge.
One suspects, however, this is exactly how they like it.
“We will give ourselves a bit of a pat on the back,” says Andrew Young. “And then just carry on.”