Sad isn't it?

This box has now been reopened, but we are still having some problems with speedy postal deliveries as Covid has decimated the number of staff available for sorting and delivering - not only here on the Isle of Man, but also in the UK and probably globally too.

Consequently we apologise if books ordered by post are not arriving as quickly as our customers (and we) might like.  

I'm sure most of you know that it was the novelist Anthony Trollope who recommended that pillar boxes be introduced to Britain.  He was a Surveyor's Clerk working for the Post Office and had seen road-side letter boxes used in France and Belgium.  On his suggestion pillar boxes were trialled in the Channel Islands in 1952, and spread to the rest of Britain by 1854.  Lamp boxes, like the one above - so called because they were affixed to lamp posts or telegraph poles, were introduced in 1857.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Image
Tholt y Will Glen (above) is the closest photograph we have of a rainforest, and much too beautiful to represent Amazon. Those of you who like Amazon should stop reading now because I fear that this is going to be a rant. We have been selling books through Amazon for nearly twenty years, since before we set up Loaghtan Books in fact.  We didn't like dealing with Amazon because we thought they were greedy; it's completely reasonable to charge commission but they take too much.  For example, our A Brief History of the Isle of Man retails at £12.95.  Amazon charges the customer £15.75 explaining that the additional £2.80 is for postage.  Not that we get anything for postage, Amazon keeps that.  Amazon credits us with £10.75 out of which we still have to take the postage, currently £4.16.   Briefly, the customer pays £15.75, Amazon gets £5.00, the postage is £4.16, we get £6.59.  Nevertheless we put up with getting only pennies more than half of the price of the book because Amazon
Read more
Image
 Above is Dreemskerry Quarry in the snow.  It's just up the road from the office.  It's actually quite small but looks almost alpine here. No longer a working quarry it is occasionally used for motorbike trials and is also home to a colony of feral cockerels.  Their previous owner kept the hens, as they provide eggs, but the cockerels were non productive (no comments please, ladies) so were 'freed' (aka dumped) in the quarry.  The Isle of Man has no foxes so the birds seem to be doing quite well.  They do appear to have the occasional rowdy party, however, as we can sometimes hear crowing from the office.  Local residents are less than happy at the occasional wake-up call at five in the morning. The island gets very little snow as a rule, but, like most of the north of Britain, had its share today.  The office is sheltered from all but an east wind, but, as that's what it was, we came to work to find the windows plastered with stuck-on snow.  It was like working in
Read more
Image
It may not look earth shattering (sea shattering?), but we saw the island's new ship Manxman go past the office over the weekend.  Distances are deceptive, but from camera to boat is about three miles.  We're not sure what she was doing as she steamed (dieseled?) north quite quickly, turned round in Ramsey Bay and then headed south at a much more leisurely pace. She's not in service yet - in fact she only arrived from Korea where she was built about a week ago - and is still undergoing sea trials.  The crew have to know that they can get her in and out of the various harbours efficiently and at all states of the tide.  She'll enter service later this month and replace Ben-my-Chree as the island's main ferry later this year. While she is undoubtedly a good-looking, modern boat, the name is rubbish.  It manages to be linguistically non Manx, sexist and boring all at the same time.  It's not even traditional, as the only other Manxman to serve in the Steam Packe
Read more