The Decline and Fall of Royal Mail

Amazing, isn’t it, that in Victorian times, without the benefit of modern technology, when people wrote letters by the score, it was possible to write to your wife in the morning to say that you would be late home from work that evening and the letter would be delivered in the afternoon.

Now, with all the technology currently at our disposal, and (apparently) far fewer letters now written, Royal Mail is proposing that second-class letters will in future be delivered only every other working day – which, in some areas, will actually be an improvement, I understand!

In Victorian London there were up to twelve deliveries a day, six days a week. Even during my childhood, two daily deliveries and, at Christmas, cards were delivered as soon as a deliverable quantity had accumulated at the Post Office – again, in far greater numbers than today.

Progress?