File:Tony Robinson on the Pillar Box.ogg

Summary[edit]

DescriptionTony Robinson on the Pillar Box.ogg	English: Audio Description for blind and partially sighted people
Date	1 October 2012
Source	https://soundcloud.com/vocaleyesad/tony-robinson-pillar-box-final?in=vocaleyesad/sets/london-beyond-sight
Author	Matthewcock
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Transcript [1]

My name is Tony Robinson – I played Baldrick in Blackadder, and I now present Time Team for Channel 4.

For the past 25 years my life has revolved around cathedrals, castles, airports and suspension bridges, but there’s another kind of architecture I warm to more than all of these, and that’s the kind we all live with every day, the architecture in our own streets.

Here we are as individuals in cities of up to 20 million people, yet somehow we all manage to function together. That’s partly because of the architecture that we use to organise the way we live – things that we’ve almost stopped noticing, things like zebra crossings that are exquisitely designed for their function.

I’ve chosen as my London landmark something that I think is the epitome of those iconic pieces – the pillar box on the corner of Formosa Street and Warrington Crescent near my home in Maida Vale. This pillar box marks the area where I live rather like a stone marks a parish boundary. Whenever I’m coming home from a trip I’m greeted by this explosion of redness – I can’t think of anything else of this type that has its own designated colour, and ‘pillar box red’ is such a bright, vibrant red that it’s utterly distinctive. Before 1859, there was no standard colour, but then a browny-green was brought in. It was intended to be in sympathy with the surroundings but it was so inconspicuous that people kept bumping into the boxes. The pillar box red we have now became the standard colour in 1874.

My pillar box is one of the George V versions. He reigned from 1910 to 1936 so it’s at least 76 years old and it’s likely to be much older. It’s a cylindrical shape about 5’4’’ inches high with a diameter of 1’4’’, and it’s in three distinct sections. The base takes up about a fifth of the height. It’s painted black, and, like an iceberg, a good part of it is hidden below the surface of the road to make sure no-one knocks the pillar box over and makes off with the mail. Mind you, the whole thing is made of cast iron, so they’d have a job. The maker’s name is in relief and I think I can just make out something that looks like ‘Kedgwall, Steven and Co Ltd, London and Glasgow’, but it’s all a bit battered down there so it’s hard to be sure. Next comes the main carcass, and that’s painted in this wonderful red. On the side that faces away from the road there’s a door that runs the whole height of the carcass, and on it are some letters and a little crown, sculpted in relief. The crown’s about half way up in the centre of the door - you’ll be able to feel the rows of jewels on the arched top, the velvet inlay and the two fleur-de-lys and gems studded around the base. Just to the right of the crown you’ll find the curved shape of the door handle – here the red paint has been almost worn away right down to the black iron beneath, and I think of all those postmen, out in all weathers, whose hands have touched that handle. Below the crown is George V’s cypher, the letters GR, standing for Georgius Rex. George V is the only monarch who didn’t have Roman numerals attached to his cypher – his dad, Edward VII had a very flowery one, but George’s letters are quite plain. Beneath this are the words POST OFFICE in capitals.

Above the crown there’s a rectangular enamelled plate which tells you when the last post will be collected – it’s 12 noon on a Saturday. Sunday collections and deliveries are a thing of the past, of course. Like the rest of the pillar box, the frame surrounding the plate is a bit scruffy – the right hand side has been broken off. Above the plate is the slot for letters – it’s horizontal, although early ones were sometimes vertical. The whole thing is topped off by a gently domed cap to keep rain out of the slot. It’s decorated by 54 indentations around the edge, just big enough for a thumbprint.

So there you have it – robust, ergonomic, authoritative, informative and economical in design. It’s had decades of continued use – you can feel all the bashes and notches it’s acquired over those years. It’s almost become what historians call a palimpsest – something that’s had the present layered over the past.

I was reminded of this when I first took my granddaughter out after she started to walk. I took her down to Formosa Street and I watched her observing all the tiny human interactions, scaffolders shouting to each other, dog walkers out for a stroll -the street shimmers with activity practically any time of day or night - and as we reached the pillar box, joy oh joy, the postman arrived in his red van to empty it, and to her, he was Postman Pat!

I’m convinced I’m not barking mad to consider my pillar box as a symbol of our progress. When the penny post arrived in 1840, ordinary men and women were able to communicate outside their own village for the first time. It led to an explosion of celebration – the first Christmas card, birthday card, Valentine’s card. I mentioned earlier that there’s no Sunday service now. Well, at the beginning of the penny post there were four or five deliveries a day. You could send a letter at noon and get a response by tea-time.

And after this, why not abroad too? By the beginning of the 20th century there was a one-penny post to the whole of the British Empire and to the USA, despite the naysayers’ misgivings. If you kept the price down you achieved bulk sales.

Recently my pillar box was tagged by graffiti, and my first reaction was to feel hurt and upset by this horrific invasion of history and aesthetics. And I think it was because my little pillar box really does signify home to me. Other people might choose a mountain or a lake, but for me, it’s this little red column standing at the corner of Formosa Street and Warrington Crescent.

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