Postboxes have stood proudly across Great Britain for hundreds of years – they are part of the very fabric of the streets.
So ubiquitous are Britain’s bright red postboxes, they are passed by millions of Brits every single day, the majority taking little notice of their design intricacies.
But not all postboxses are all the same – they carry different symbols on the front, and each one gives away a huge clue about when the box was made.
Er, yes, nothing new here.
The Postal Museum sparked some surprise on Twitter recently by posting about the Royal Cyphers on the face of Britain’s familiar postboxes.
Dozens of Twitter users were surprised to learn the meaning being ‘GR’ and ‘ER’ embossed on the solid metal doors, swung open daily by the postman.
These ‘iconic symbols’ are made by ‘combining a monarch’s initials and title.
More intriguingly, the symbols reveal roughly when the box was created, because each one was made during the reign of the monarch embossed on the front.
This tells us much about just how thick the average Twitter user is if they didn’t know this. It’s common knowledge. I knew it when I was a child. Truly, the world is going down the drain of ignorance, stupidity and dumbing down.
The Mail have been doing this recently. Only a couple of days ago I saw a headline that was something like “People share their amazement online at finding out what the letters of the record store HMV mean”. His Masters Voice. I’d always assumed that most people were aware of it. I also assumed that the logo, featuring a Jack Russell terrier listening to a gramophone, would be something of a clue. Apparently I was wrong. And about a week prior, there was another, though I’ve forgotten what the mysterious letters were in that story.
I’m past being surprised at the levels of ignorance displayed nowadays (as well as the propensity to misuse language eg King Charles being ‘coronated’ rather than crowned).
There was an amusing feature on ‘Saturday Live’ some years ago about a man whose obsession was to photograph all the postboxes in England, to which end he and his long-suffering wife spent their holidays scouring the country. British eccentrics – love ’em.
I work in the care sector, the new staff coming through are sometimes surprising. Several can’t tell the time looking at a clock. Too use to digital time on phones. One commented that why do all the people in the bible have English names!!! Their use of English and the written word is unbelievable.
Frightening is that these are the people who could be looking after us in the future.
Although I’m an Aussie, I must admit I automatically assumed this when I first saw the symbols.
But on the other hand I still remember when the 9 year old kid in the library pointed out that the computer was a touch screen. I thanked him politely.
Well I’m sixty four and I’m now so used to touch screens that I do it the other way around, tapping the ordinary screens with my finger and expecting a response.
I got so used to swiping to “turn” a page on my ereader that I once found myself swiping to turn a page of a real book. 😀