THERE is something reassuring in Royal Mail’s announcement that it will provide 150 new post boxes in Scotland. From printed books to high street shops, new technology is supposed to kill off much that we love, and so-called snail mail was expected to be among these.
Email and instant communications have improved our lives and commerce immeasurably but, clearly, there remains a place for solid documentation, from proper invitations through hand-written love letters (no place for perfume in that texted marriage proposal) to formal contracts and agreements that prefer a signature to be in ink rather than pixels.
All in all, it is good news that more of the cheery red street furniture that is much loved (even, alas, by dogs) is to feature in our communities.
Of course, Royal Mail has not made its decision on romantic or aesthetic grounds. It is now a profit-seeking firm that frequently takes a hard-headed look at all of its operations. Indeed, it has acknowledged that many post boxes are – heaven forfend – “uneconomic” and that volumes of physical mail placed therein have fallen.
However, rather than do away with these boxes, the organisation has made collections more efficient by having them emptied by posties on their rounds rather than by dedicated vans.
And now it is providing more boxes to better serve remote communities, new housing developments, train stations and shopping centres that have hitherto gone without.
This makes sense from the perspectives of both service and profitability, making it a commendable initiative from the Royal Mail. Next thing, they will be allowing our sternly timed posties to stop and chat again.
Best of all is the assumption – or hope – that letters will still be written and posted, comprising in WH Auden’s words, “The chatty, the catty, the boring, the adoring/The cold and official and the heart’s outpouring/Clever, stupid, short and long/The typed and the printed and the spelt all wrong.”
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