Keeping you posted.

I began this blog as “Letters from Rome”, following on from the original collection, but as I'm in the UK at the moment, I decided to send you some letters from there instead.  It was the idea of posting letters that made me wonder whether people outside the UK know about our postboxes, which are known as pillar boxes.  Of course they are red and quite iconic, or at least I believe they are, although perhaps not so much as our old phone boxes J  However I wonder how many travellers to the UK have ever noticed the front of our pillar boxes, or if they have, ever been curious as to what the letters so carefully inscribed on the front of each stand for.  Can you see on the front of this double pillar box?  It is a rare double box, one that is more usually found outside a post office as indeed this one is.

 The letters ER stand for Elizabeth Regina, and every pillar box made in the reign of Queen Elizabeth will have those letters adorning the front.  However post boxes made during the reign of different king or queen will have their initials on the box instead, and in the case where there are several kings with the same name, the “number” of the king will be given too.  So in the case of this one for example,

manufactured in the reign of a King George, of whom there have been several, one can clearly see (if one looks) that this one was made during the reign of George VI. The R in GR in the case of a King stands for Rex, so here GR means George Rex (i.e. King George).

It can be quite good fun looking at the old postboxes to see how old they must be.  Have a look at some older models of postboxes and also some used in other countries where the UK exported them.  You’ll find the link here.