Tuesday 24 February 2015

Post offices and prints



Last week, a new issue of stamps was released. I went to buy these from a little sub post office a few miles out of town. I spoke to the elderly gentleman behind the counter and was told he was retiring next month, but I will be able to buy the next issue of stamps from him. The post office is closing and moving across the road to a convenience store (Spar I think), but I doubt that they will be able to supply all my postal needs. Today, I came to another little post office where I bought the Paralympic stamps, thinking I could see if I will be able to get my postal needs in April from there, but no, that post office is also closing next month and will be relocated into Spar. The post office in the town I live in does not order enough stamps for my needs. So, where can I try next? Maybe the branch in a WHS in the nearby university town would be able to sell me the amount of stamps I need. If that fails, I guess I could resort to ringing up Royal Mail and placing my order direct (the postage would be cheaper than the bus fare to my lovely sub post office).
Today, I heard on the radio about an exhibition on at the Tate: Salt prints, photographs taken between 1840-1860. This has me thinking about another photographic format - digital images. Will our descendants be able to open and see all these images in full glory in 170 years time? Possibly the majority of salt prints created in the 19th century may well have been lost, but those remaining are "visible" but maybe the software and technology for today's digital photos, stored on hard drives or other media, may not be available for future generations.
Thinking then of correspondence, will our descendants be visiting a museum containing emails written by famous people? Many museums have letters in already, but there may be a generation now unable to read them because they are unfamiliar with cursive handwriting. I love the flow of "handwriting" as opposed to block letters written in ballpoint, in fact, usually I find the former easier to read (although it may take me a while to get used to a particular writing style). 

1 comment:

  1. What a shame your local post offices are closing. The post office in our village closed long before we arrived so I have to go into the city to the post office there, but oftentimes they don't have the new stamps. More often than not, I have to resort to ordering my stamps from the Royal Mail site.

    ReplyDelete