Post haste...

.. I suppose we don't really appreciate the convenience of it all. I am unsually lucky, since it can't be more than 25 steps from my study to the pillar box on the corner. At the moment, between clearing up my mother-in-law's estate, and taking care of my mother's admin while she is in hospital - plus all my own routine - I am making the journey fairly frequently. The major challenge is not to get knocked down with one of the hundreds of cars who fly round the corner on a mission to avoid traffic lights and get home 45 seconds earlier.

At other times, of course, I never do this at all. E-mail and all kinds of on-line applications have made a tremendous impact on the old-fashioned postal method.

The pillar box was introduced in 1852. Anthony Trollope (Barchester Chronicles, the Pallisers, etc) was a postal inspector. He was sent to the Channel Islands to try to work out how to respond to the irregularity of getting the mail onto boats that were so subject to wind and tide. He recommended that the mail should be collected in a device that he has previously admired in Paris. A "letter-receiving pillar". Four would be needed for Guernsey and five for Jersey.

And so it all began.......