0:00:04 > 0:00:08Well, I can't do that, they need to send me an e-mail.
0:00:08 > 0:00:09OK, fine.
0:00:09 > 0:00:11Thanks, bye.
0:00:11 > 0:00:14'I've been an MP for nearly 20 years.'
0:00:14 > 0:00:17I can't do that meeting for 9.30.
0:00:17 > 0:00:22'In that time, communication has changed beyond all recognition.'
0:00:22 > 0:00:26'I remember receiving my very first e-mail.'
0:00:26 > 0:00:27It felt like a revolution.
0:00:27 > 0:00:31But people do still send me letters.
0:00:31 > 0:00:34And I'm pleased to say that most of them are delivered
0:00:34 > 0:00:35by the Royal Mail.
0:00:35 > 0:00:39# Wait, oh, yes, wait a minute, Mr Postman... #
0:00:39 > 0:00:43Back in 1968, at the age of 18, I had the privilege
0:00:43 > 0:00:46of joining that great British institution as a postman.
0:00:48 > 0:00:51I never imagined that one day I'd become General Secretary
0:00:51 > 0:00:56of the Postal Workers Union and ultimately be elected to Parliament.
0:00:56 > 0:00:58So the Post Office changed my life.
0:00:59 > 0:01:02But throughout history, it also changed Britain.
0:01:03 > 0:01:07Now, nearly 40 years after I delivered my last letter,
0:01:07 > 0:01:11I'm going back in time to find out how this happened.
0:01:11 > 0:01:13It's a part of the Post Office that I never saw.
0:01:13 > 0:01:18How the first revolution in mass communication was created here.
0:01:18 > 0:01:21The first day cover to end all first day covers.
0:01:22 > 0:01:27How the British Post Office became the envy of the world.
0:01:27 > 0:01:29This is the kind of speed I used to sort it.
0:01:30 > 0:01:32It was the perfect job for a bigamist.
0:01:32 > 0:01:34LAUGHTER
0:01:34 > 0:01:36And how even in the age of e-mail,
0:01:36 > 0:01:40our postmen and women still bind the country together.
0:01:40 > 0:01:43Someone could come here from any part of the world,
0:01:43 > 0:01:46they know they're in this country when they see a red pillar box.
0:01:52 > 0:01:55# Give me a ticket for an aeroplane
0:01:55 > 0:01:58# Ain't got time to take a fast train... #
0:02:00 > 0:02:03Imagine for a moment that it's 1968.
0:02:04 > 0:02:07I'm an 18-year-old postman on my way to work.
0:02:07 > 0:02:11Six days a week, I'd cycle from Notting Hill, where I lived,
0:02:11 > 0:02:16across Hammersmith Bridge to the sorting office on Barnes Green.
0:02:16 > 0:02:19We had to report for duty at 5.30am.
0:02:19 > 0:02:24And I'm sorry to say that I struggled with the early mornings.
0:02:26 > 0:02:27But I loved the job.
0:02:28 > 0:02:31My old sorting office has since closed down.
0:02:31 > 0:02:35Today, the mail for my old walks in Barnes is sorted down the road,
0:02:35 > 0:02:37here in Mortlake.
0:02:37 > 0:02:41I've come to see what else has changed for the local London postie.
0:02:41 > 0:02:45I sometimes have dreams about being back as a postman in Barnes.
0:02:45 > 0:02:47I was only here for a year.
0:02:47 > 0:02:51The ethos of being a postman meant something.
0:02:51 > 0:02:54When I joined the General Post Office,
0:02:54 > 0:02:55or GPO, as it was called,
0:02:55 > 0:02:57it was actually a department of Government.
0:02:57 > 0:03:00And us employees were uniformed civil servants.
0:03:00 > 0:03:04The GPO had the monopoly on delivering mail
0:03:04 > 0:03:07and it was also responsible for parcels, telephones,
0:03:07 > 0:03:09broadcasting and a bank.
0:03:11 > 0:03:13Today, all that has changed.
0:03:13 > 0:03:17But I wonder, is the actual job of delivering the mail any different?
0:03:17 > 0:03:20- Nadine, how are you?- Hello, hi. - Good to see you.
0:03:20 > 0:03:24I've got you just as you are getting a bundle together. Good to see you.
0:03:24 > 0:03:26You've got a lot of bulky stuff here.
0:03:26 > 0:03:30- Do you still...?- Yes, this one is quite heavy.- Is it?- Yeah.- Yeah.
0:03:30 > 0:03:33We used to have all the bundles and we had to number them
0:03:33 > 0:03:37because they went into a sack, something like this.
0:03:37 > 0:03:41And then you put it across your back and you'd tie it,
0:03:41 > 0:03:44you'd have a penny piece there, so the string could wrap around it,
0:03:44 > 0:03:46and tie it round there.
0:03:46 > 0:03:48And off you'd go and step on the bus.
0:03:48 > 0:03:51That would be your whole walk? Just that bit in the sack?
0:03:51 > 0:03:55- Just that.- OK.- See, you think we had an easy time, didn't you?
0:03:55 > 0:03:58- Yeah.- It was... It was awful, it was really hard.
0:03:59 > 0:04:00You've got all this.
0:04:03 > 0:04:05You've got all this.
0:04:05 > 0:04:08And here, you've got another...
0:04:08 > 0:04:10a pouch, on there as well.
0:04:10 > 0:04:13That is incredible. You wouldn't get that lot on a bicycle.
0:04:16 > 0:04:20Nadine is every bit a 21st-century postwoman.
0:04:20 > 0:04:24But she delivers to most of the streets on my old round.
0:04:24 > 0:04:26She's agreed to take me along.
0:04:26 > 0:04:30- Is it difficult to push? - Um...- Can I have a go?
0:04:30 > 0:04:31- Yeah, of course.- Let me have a go.
0:04:31 > 0:04:33Oh, right, yeah.
0:04:33 > 0:04:35Good morning.
0:04:35 > 0:04:37Hi.
0:04:40 > 0:04:42Good morning.
0:04:42 > 0:04:45These are exactly the same. No change whatsoever.
0:04:47 > 0:04:49- Can I deliver these?- Yeah.
0:04:49 > 0:04:53It'll be my first time for, I don't know, 50 years.
0:04:54 > 0:04:57When we had an address where there was a packet,
0:04:57 > 0:05:01we used to turn it over that way, so it would tell you there's a packet.
0:05:01 > 0:05:03- Yeah, that's what I do. - You still do that?
0:05:03 > 0:05:06- Everyone does that. - Hey, something that's survived.
0:05:06 > 0:05:10All right, you're going in here, we'll see you in a few minutes.
0:05:10 > 0:05:14This has been absolutely wonderful.
0:05:14 > 0:05:17It just connects... 47 years have just disappeared.
0:05:17 > 0:05:20You're a piece of continuity in this community
0:05:20 > 0:05:25and they like to see Nadine walking along every morning,
0:05:25 > 0:05:29just as I hope they liked to see me when I was doing the deliveries.
0:05:31 > 0:05:33But continuity isn't the whole story.
0:05:33 > 0:05:37Since I joined, the business has been transformed.
0:05:37 > 0:05:40The Royal Mail Group is now a private company
0:05:40 > 0:05:43operating in a highly competitive global market.
0:05:43 > 0:05:46The sale was controversial, particularly with me.
0:05:46 > 0:05:48But it was part of a much longer story.
0:05:48 > 0:05:50One that has seen the post
0:05:50 > 0:05:54and its role in British society go through many transformations.
0:05:56 > 0:06:01Because, believe it or not, the Royal Mail is now 500 years old.
0:06:09 > 0:06:14Henry VIII founded the Royal Mail as long ago as 1516.
0:06:14 > 0:06:16And in the centuries that followed,
0:06:16 > 0:06:20it grew into a network that was the envy of the world.
0:06:20 > 0:06:22By the late 18th century,
0:06:22 > 0:06:25the postal system worked well for the upper crust.
0:06:25 > 0:06:27But for ordinary people,
0:06:27 > 0:06:30sending a simple letter was completely unaffordable.
0:06:30 > 0:06:31And there was another,
0:06:31 > 0:06:34perhaps even more serious problem with the system.
0:06:34 > 0:06:38The price of postage wasn't paid by the person sending a letter,
0:06:38 > 0:06:41but by the unfortunate recipient.
0:06:43 > 0:06:49Historian Dominic Sandbrook is an expert in British social history.
0:06:49 > 0:06:51At that point, in the sort of 1830s,
0:06:51 > 0:06:54you know, you got a letter, you had to pay for it.
0:06:54 > 0:06:57You had to pay so much per sheet.
0:06:57 > 0:07:00Yeah, so people dreaded the arrival of the postman.
0:07:00 > 0:07:03Particularly people further down the social scale
0:07:03 > 0:07:06because the postman pitches up with a letter five pages long,
0:07:06 > 0:07:08from your point of view, that's a nightmare.
0:07:08 > 0:07:10You've got to find the money from somewhere.
0:07:10 > 0:07:12There are stories of people who'd refuse to have letters
0:07:12 > 0:07:17or would communicate with one another with a code on the envelope.
0:07:17 > 0:07:20So you'd look at the envelope, you'd see the code and say,
0:07:20 > 0:07:22"No, thank you, I don't want to pay for it."
0:07:22 > 0:07:24But you'd have got the message anyway.
0:07:26 > 0:07:29But by the early 19th century, change was coming.
0:07:30 > 0:07:36In 1835, a man by the name of Rowland Hill took it upon himself
0:07:36 > 0:07:40to revolutionise the British postal system.
0:07:40 > 0:07:44Duncan Campbell-Smith has written an official history of the Royal Mail.
0:07:44 > 0:07:46He's come to know Rowland Hill well.
0:07:46 > 0:07:50I've heard him described as a very early special adviser,
0:07:50 > 0:07:53- what we would call a special adviser.- Yeah.
0:07:53 > 0:07:55He wasn't part of the Post Office.
0:07:55 > 0:07:59Not at all, the Post Office loathed him, they thought he was mad.
0:07:59 > 0:08:01And they were only half wrong.
0:08:01 > 0:08:04He was a man of fierce self-belief...
0:08:05 > 0:08:09..and utter conviction that he was going to change the world.
0:08:09 > 0:08:11He just didn't know in what way.
0:08:11 > 0:08:15The Old Post Office, as it was always referred to,
0:08:15 > 0:08:17was ripe for reform.
0:08:17 > 0:08:21Hill set out his radical ideas in a pamphlet entitled
0:08:21 > 0:08:25Post Office Reform, Its Importance And Practicability.
0:08:25 > 0:08:27In it, Hill laid the foundations
0:08:27 > 0:08:31for a complete revolution in mass communication.
0:08:32 > 0:08:34The gist of it was three big ideas.
0:08:34 > 0:08:36The first one was prepayment.
0:08:36 > 0:08:39The second is one price.
0:08:39 > 0:08:41This is a really radical idea.
0:08:41 > 0:08:45So all these dozens, hundreds of clerks, sitting there,
0:08:45 > 0:08:48poring over every individual letter to work out where its address is
0:08:48 > 0:08:51and decide what the price of it should be,
0:08:51 > 0:08:52all that's gone, we'll have one price.
0:08:52 > 0:08:55And the third of the three big points -
0:08:55 > 0:08:59a real shocker to all his contemporaries, many of whom said
0:08:59 > 0:09:03look, this is rather mad - we'll have one price, it'll be one penny.
0:09:05 > 0:09:09Hill's ideas didn't make him popular with the Post Office's hierarchy.
0:09:09 > 0:09:11But in Victorian England,
0:09:11 > 0:09:15the urge for reform often shifted the status quo.
0:09:15 > 0:09:18He had this enormous amount of flak.
0:09:18 > 0:09:20But what he was able to capitalise on, I think,
0:09:20 > 0:09:24was the argument that this is a country which is itching
0:09:24 > 0:09:28to throw itself into consumerism and into trade and this kind of thing.
0:09:28 > 0:09:31And this reform, this is what will benefit.
0:09:31 > 0:09:34Of course, it wasn't just ordinary people who benefited,
0:09:34 > 0:09:36businesses benefited hugely from the penny post.
0:09:37 > 0:09:42So, in 1839, Rowland Hill was parachuted into the Post Office
0:09:42 > 0:09:44on a mission to shake things up.
0:09:44 > 0:09:48And one of the first changes he introduced would turn out to be
0:09:48 > 0:09:50his most famous invention of all.
0:09:50 > 0:09:55It was a solution to the problem of how postage should be prepaid.
0:09:55 > 0:09:57He said, well, the way we'll do it is
0:09:57 > 0:10:03we'll have huge piles of prepaid stationery at post offices.
0:10:03 > 0:10:06So you go in with your letter
0:10:06 > 0:10:08and you can take this prepaid bit of stationery
0:10:08 > 0:10:10and wrap it around your letter,
0:10:10 > 0:10:13or you can write it on the prepaid stationery, and then people said,
0:10:13 > 0:10:17"Well, you know, that's not going to work very well because
0:10:17 > 0:10:20"what happens if the person who comes in is somebody's servant
0:10:20 > 0:10:23"and they're illiterate, they won't be able to write."
0:10:23 > 0:10:26In other words, you have to have a piece of prepaid literature
0:10:26 > 0:10:28which is more portable than that,
0:10:28 > 0:10:31so it doesn't just have to sit inside a post office,
0:10:31 > 0:10:33people could have it in their homes or something.
0:10:33 > 0:10:37Ah! What we'll do is we'll take a little piece of paper,
0:10:37 > 0:10:40and this is where you get this famous bit of paper
0:10:40 > 0:10:43covered at the back with glutinous wash
0:10:43 > 0:10:46known to us as a stamp.
0:10:48 > 0:10:51The world's first postage stamp,
0:10:51 > 0:10:54the iconic Penny Black, has become a collectors' item.
0:10:55 > 0:10:58They still sell for big money.
0:10:58 > 0:11:00But to see the most precious examples
0:11:00 > 0:11:03of this revolutionary British invention,
0:11:03 > 0:11:05you need a very special invitation.
0:11:05 > 0:11:10At a secret location, deep inside one of London's Royal palaces,
0:11:10 > 0:11:13what is possibly the world's greatest stamp collection
0:11:13 > 0:11:15is kept under lock and key.
0:11:16 > 0:11:18Begun by King Edward VII,
0:11:18 > 0:11:22it was expanded by avid philatelist George V.
0:11:22 > 0:11:26The collection is now the private property of the Queen
0:11:26 > 0:11:28and it's worth untold millions.
0:11:28 > 0:11:32Its keeper, Michael Sefi, has agreed to let me take a look.
0:11:32 > 0:11:34Wow.
0:11:34 > 0:11:39So, this is the stamp collection to end all stamp collections, I'd think.
0:11:39 > 0:11:43328 albums which consist of
0:11:43 > 0:11:47around 50 pages in each album.
0:11:47 > 0:11:49I think, of its kind,
0:11:49 > 0:11:53it's the finest collection there is because the coverage is so wide.
0:11:55 > 0:11:58In that it's Great Britain and the Commonwealth,
0:11:58 > 0:11:59or Empire, as was then.
0:12:02 > 0:12:06Rowland Hill might have come up with the idea of the postage stamp,
0:12:06 > 0:12:09but he didn't know how it should be designed.
0:12:09 > 0:12:13So he launched a competition which attracted thousands of entries.
0:12:13 > 0:12:17The Royal Collection contains some fascinating examples of these
0:12:17 > 0:12:21"might have been" stamp designs.
0:12:21 > 0:12:24The need for reform had to be accompanied
0:12:24 > 0:12:27with a different method of payment for postage,
0:12:27 > 0:12:30which up until then had been done on the basis of distance,
0:12:30 > 0:12:33which was a known feature, and how many sheets you had.
0:12:33 > 0:12:36So, this competition was held in 1839
0:12:36 > 0:12:40under the supervision of Rowland Hill, by the Treasury,
0:12:40 > 0:12:42asking the public for ideas
0:12:42 > 0:12:46about how the postal services could be reformed.
0:12:46 > 0:12:49And one of my favourites is this.
0:12:49 > 0:12:51This was an idea for a stamp booklet.
0:12:51 > 0:12:53Right, by John Little.
0:12:53 > 0:12:56- John Little.- To the Treasury. - To the Treasury.
0:12:56 > 0:12:58And he said... Let's have...
0:12:58 > 0:13:01But his artwork hardly has...
0:13:01 > 0:13:05- Wasn't so good! - I mean, the Queen with a moustache.
0:13:05 > 0:13:07- Yes.- That's meant to be the Queen.
0:13:07 > 0:13:12But this was an idea that was, what, 70 years before its time?
0:13:12 > 0:13:16- Yes, stamp books didn't arrive... - Until 1904.- 1904. Goodness gracious.
0:13:17 > 0:13:20And this was bought by the Queen.
0:13:20 > 0:13:22She approved the purchase.
0:13:22 > 0:13:27But only if we realised enough by selling duplicates.
0:13:27 > 0:13:30And we bought this for £250,000.
0:13:33 > 0:13:37It's the first day cover to end all first day covers.
0:13:37 > 0:13:41Because it has a block of ten of the Penny Black used on 6 May 1840,
0:13:41 > 0:13:43which was the first day of use.
0:13:43 > 0:13:46And the next largest multiple on a cover is a pair.
0:13:46 > 0:13:49Well, how wonderful.
0:13:50 > 0:13:53Today, we take the post for granted.
0:13:53 > 0:13:55Sometimes even deriding it as snail mail.
0:13:55 > 0:13:58We think of it as something old-fashioned.
0:13:58 > 0:14:01But the creation of the uniform penny post was one of
0:14:01 > 0:14:05the most transformative innovations in all of British history.
0:14:05 > 0:14:08At a stroke, Rowland Hill had laid the foundations
0:14:08 > 0:14:12for mass communication. He had democratised the mail.
0:14:13 > 0:14:17You could compare it with the impact of e-mails in the 1990s.
0:14:17 > 0:14:21I think it was even more of a momentous event, actually,
0:14:21 > 0:14:25- in the history of communication, writ large, than e-mails.- Yes.
0:14:25 > 0:14:28Suddenly, for the first time in history,
0:14:28 > 0:14:31people with no money at all, or next to no money,
0:14:31 > 0:14:34can communicate with their relatives on the other side of the country.
0:14:34 > 0:14:36It was a huge breakthrough.
0:14:36 > 0:14:38Under Rowland Hill, Britain's postal system
0:14:38 > 0:14:40became a model for the whole world.
0:14:40 > 0:14:44And since this was the time when proper government archives
0:14:44 > 0:14:47were being set up, its records still exist.
0:14:47 > 0:14:51Today, this extraordinary collection is looked after
0:14:51 > 0:14:53by the British Postal Museum and Archive.
0:14:53 > 0:14:58The objects here tell the story of how the Post Office changed Britain.
0:14:58 > 0:15:01Curator Vicky Parkinson has picked out one intriguing example
0:15:01 > 0:15:03for me to have a look at.
0:15:04 > 0:15:10This was the first idea, 1838, of dividing London up in districts,
0:15:10 > 0:15:12identifying what Greater London was.
0:15:12 > 0:15:13Because if you look,
0:15:13 > 0:15:17- it goes out, Croydon is down here and it goes up to Cheshunt.- Right.
0:15:17 > 0:15:22- Which is the kind of border of Greater London now.- Yeah.
0:15:22 > 0:15:25This is fascinating because it's the precursor to postcodes
0:15:25 > 0:15:28- that came in 100-odd years later. - In its infancy, yeah.
0:15:28 > 0:15:31If you have a look, you can see there are two areas
0:15:31 > 0:15:32that don't exist any more.
0:15:32 > 0:15:36And I know exactly what those are because I had to learn
0:15:36 > 0:15:38the London postal districts as part of my training.
0:15:38 > 0:15:42- North Eastern and Southern.- Indeed. Southern didn't last very long.
0:15:42 > 0:15:45If you look at the areas, it's quite a rural area,
0:15:45 > 0:15:49so they split that between South East and South West.
0:15:49 > 0:15:51North East didn't go until 1875.
0:15:51 > 0:15:54And that was only less than 25 years
0:15:54 > 0:15:56since the creation of the postal districts.
0:15:56 > 0:16:00But there was already that connotation of a district
0:16:00 > 0:16:01denoting social status
0:16:01 > 0:16:04because there were so many complaints from people,
0:16:04 > 0:16:08particularly ones who didn't want to move from NE to E
0:16:08 > 0:16:10because there was that snobbery there already.
0:16:10 > 0:16:15So we have a letter from a doctor in Hackney who basically
0:16:15 > 0:16:18complains bitterly because he thinks he's going to lose his business
0:16:18 > 0:16:22- if people have to come to a doctor who is an E post.- In east London.
0:16:22 > 0:16:24Because that was the working-class,
0:16:24 > 0:16:27where the less refined population of London lived.
0:16:27 > 0:16:32There are still...NE road signs in Clapton to this day.
0:16:32 > 0:16:35- They've still got North East? - They've still got NE, yeah.
0:16:36 > 0:16:40Between 1840 and 1920, the volume of mail being carried
0:16:40 > 0:16:45rose from about 80 million items a year to almost 6 billion.
0:16:46 > 0:16:49And during this period, the Post Office was becoming
0:16:49 > 0:16:51more than just a useful service.
0:16:51 > 0:16:53It was changing the very relationship
0:16:53 > 0:16:56between the Government and the citizen.
0:16:56 > 0:16:59I can't think of a comparable example so early, actually,
0:16:59 > 0:17:03of the state being a kind of benign servant of the people.
0:17:03 > 0:17:07Generally, when you came into contact with the state, you know,
0:17:07 > 0:17:10the Post Office apart, right up to the 20th century,
0:17:10 > 0:17:13the state was making your life a misery in one way or another.
0:17:13 > 0:17:15It was trying to stop you having fun, or tell you what to do,
0:17:15 > 0:17:18or take some of your money or all these kinds of things.
0:17:18 > 0:17:22The idea that the state was there to help you was an outlandish idea.
0:17:22 > 0:17:25And I think the Post Office, its image,
0:17:25 > 0:17:27and the image of the postman, changed almost overnight.
0:17:27 > 0:17:31Suddenly, the Post Office was woven into the fabric of daily life
0:17:31 > 0:17:34in a way it simply hadn't been before then.
0:17:35 > 0:17:40By the 1890s, a network of 25,000 sub post offices
0:17:40 > 0:17:43had sprung up right across the country.
0:17:43 > 0:17:48This was probably the most extensive communication network in the world.
0:17:48 > 0:17:50At Blists Hill Museum in Shropshire,
0:17:50 > 0:17:55you can visit a typical late-19th-century sub post office
0:17:55 > 0:17:56and find out how it worked.
0:17:59 > 0:18:01- Good morning, Postmaster. - Good morning.
0:18:01 > 0:18:04And how are you on this fine day...
0:18:04 > 0:18:07- I'm very fine, thank you, sir, and yourself?- ..in 1890?
0:18:07 > 0:18:08I'm very well, thank you.
0:18:08 > 0:18:12Much like today, a post office like this would sell
0:18:12 > 0:18:14stationery and writing supplies.
0:18:14 > 0:18:16But the one thing it wouldn't sell
0:18:16 > 0:18:19was something we take for granted today - an envelope.
0:18:19 > 0:18:23What you've done is you've wrote your letter,
0:18:23 > 0:18:26you're using the back of the letter as the envelope.
0:18:26 > 0:18:30So we're leaving a tab right at the top there.
0:18:30 > 0:18:32And then we fold that tab over.
0:18:32 > 0:18:35Ah, cos you didn't have an envelope, in those days.
0:18:35 > 0:18:38No, you're literally using the back of the letter.
0:18:38 > 0:18:39Envelopes came later, yeah.
0:18:39 > 0:18:42And then we're putting a dozen drops of wax on here.
0:18:42 > 0:18:45Crikey, it's quite a long process.
0:18:45 > 0:18:47It is, it's very slow.
0:18:47 > 0:18:51- Then we would put that out in a candle snuffer.- And then the seal.
0:18:51 > 0:18:54And then we'd just drop it on there and just wait for that to dry.
0:18:54 > 0:18:57Two fingers either side and pull straight off.
0:18:57 > 0:19:00There's your seal. The best postal service in the world at that time.
0:19:00 > 0:19:02And everybody else followed suit
0:19:02 > 0:19:05- and tried to keep up with the British GPO.- Indeed, very much so.
0:19:06 > 0:19:10I think it's impossible to exaggerate what it meant
0:19:10 > 0:19:12for individuals and families.
0:19:12 > 0:19:15You know, in the days before the penny post,
0:19:15 > 0:19:20if your aunt went off to Aberdeen, that's it, bye-bye,
0:19:20 > 0:19:22you probably wouldn't hear from her.
0:19:22 > 0:19:25And the transformation between that and the world where...
0:19:25 > 0:19:29You know, people would go for a day trip to Blackpool
0:19:29 > 0:19:34and they would send their parents a postcard before lunch
0:19:34 > 0:19:37to say I'll be back home at 5.30.
0:19:37 > 0:19:40And such was the post that if you lived near enough by,
0:19:40 > 0:19:42they could have got it before you got home.
0:19:42 > 0:19:45And this notice to the public, so this is
0:19:45 > 0:19:49"by command of the Postmaster General, notice to the public.
0:19:49 > 0:19:51"Rapid delivery of letters."
0:19:51 > 0:19:54This is GPO, May 1849,
0:19:54 > 0:19:57nine years after Rowland Hill introduced the penny post.
0:19:57 > 0:20:00"The Postmaster General is desirous of calling attention
0:20:00 > 0:20:04"to the greater rapidity of delivery which would obviously be consequent
0:20:04 > 0:20:09"on the general adoption of street-door letterboxes, or slits,
0:20:09 > 0:20:10"in private dwelling houses,
0:20:10 > 0:20:14"and indeed wherever the postman is at present kept waiting."
0:20:14 > 0:20:15This is the letterbox,
0:20:15 > 0:20:19he is telling people to cut a hole in their front door
0:20:19 > 0:20:23to make it easier for the postman to put the letters through.
0:20:23 > 0:20:28I only wish he'd added on there, for the sake of poor postmen like me,
0:20:28 > 0:20:32"Please, put them at an acceptable height.
0:20:32 > 0:20:35"Don't put them right down near the pavement."
0:20:35 > 0:20:41Which means it's the greatest cause of bad backs for postmen.
0:20:42 > 0:20:44Today, the Post Office is still publicly owned,
0:20:44 > 0:20:47but it's a different company from Royal Mail.
0:20:47 > 0:20:49There are now post office counters
0:20:49 > 0:20:52inside a wide range of high street shops.
0:20:52 > 0:20:54But, for some rural communities,
0:20:54 > 0:20:59that old idea of the sub post office as the hub of the village lives on.
0:20:59 > 0:21:03# Wait! Oh, yes, wait a minute, Mr postman
0:21:03 > 0:21:07# Wait! Wait, Mr postman... #
0:21:11 > 0:21:17A few years ago, the Post Office and shop here in Dunsfold, Surrey,
0:21:17 > 0:21:19was under threat of closure.
0:21:19 > 0:21:22So the local people clubbed together and bought it,
0:21:22 > 0:21:26and despite stiff competition from FedEx, DHL and all the rest,
0:21:26 > 0:21:28it seems to be thriving.
0:21:28 > 0:21:30Could I have these two newspapers, please?
0:21:30 > 0:21:33You're part of the local community, you are volunteering?
0:21:33 > 0:21:36I am a volunteer and a shareholder.
0:21:36 > 0:21:39- Right, so, everyone who... - As we all are.
0:21:39 > 0:21:41Or at least as many of us who wanted to be.
0:21:41 > 0:21:43And that was most people would put something in?
0:21:43 > 0:21:47I think a fair proportion of people did, but it wasn't compulsory.
0:21:47 > 0:21:49But we wanted to save the shop.
0:21:49 > 0:21:52The thing is, you hear the gossip first here?
0:21:52 > 0:21:55You hear the gossip here first and, yes,
0:21:55 > 0:21:58if you want to know anything, you know...
0:21:58 > 0:22:01- It's not so much the local newspaper, it's what you hear here. - I love it.
0:22:01 > 0:22:04But it must be great, particularly people who are elderly,
0:22:04 > 0:22:07living on their own, to have this place to come to
0:22:07 > 0:22:10- where it stops them feeling isolated.- Exactly.- Lonely.
0:22:10 > 0:22:13So it's a proper community resource. Marvellous.
0:22:13 > 0:22:17- There should be more of them. Thank you for my newspapers.- Pleasure.
0:22:17 > 0:22:21And the proud tradition of the sub postmistress is also being
0:22:21 > 0:22:23upheld here by Annie Wace.
0:22:23 > 0:22:26The Post Office came under threat of closure.
0:22:26 > 0:22:29We did, and in 2008 we almost lost this Post Office.
0:22:29 > 0:22:31We went out to the village and said,
0:22:31 > 0:22:33"How much does this Post Office mean to you?
0:22:33 > 0:22:36"How much does this little shop mean to you?"
0:22:36 > 0:22:40And that quick, we signed a petition and we saved this Post Office.
0:22:40 > 0:22:42- And it's fun.- If the shop had gone,
0:22:42 > 0:22:44- the Post Office would have gone as well.- That's right.
0:22:44 > 0:22:46So we work in tandem with each other
0:22:46 > 0:22:48because they come in obviously to post their parcels,
0:22:48 > 0:22:51but while they're here, they can get things they need,
0:22:51 > 0:22:53or while they're waiting,
0:22:53 > 0:22:55"I forgot milk today, I need tea, I need bread."
0:22:55 > 0:23:00- This is incredible. Dry cleaning. - Everything.- Off-licence, newsagent.
0:23:00 > 0:23:04- So yeah, it's lovely.- But it's also the hub for this rural community.
0:23:04 > 0:23:06It's what keeps everything going.
0:23:09 > 0:23:12I think this place is a real inspiration.
0:23:12 > 0:23:15And it reminds me of my second job with the Royal Mail
0:23:15 > 0:23:16when I left London behind
0:23:16 > 0:23:20and moved out to Buckinghamshire with my young family.
0:23:21 > 0:23:24From there, my new delivery route took me right out
0:23:24 > 0:23:27into the countryside, which for a city boy like me was heaven.
0:23:29 > 0:23:32I had become a proper rural postman.
0:23:32 > 0:23:35Here in Dunsfold, that tradition is alive and well.
0:23:35 > 0:23:39The sorting office is a shed behind the shop.
0:23:39 > 0:23:42And the daily delivery round covers miles of country lanes
0:23:42 > 0:23:44and isolated addresses.
0:23:44 > 0:23:47Postman Dave knows it like the back of his hand.
0:23:47 > 0:23:51I have to say, Dave, these were not...
0:23:51 > 0:23:53- Shorts were not part of the uniform. - I know.
0:23:53 > 0:23:57- Indeed, the collar and tie and a waistcoat.- That's it.
0:23:57 > 0:23:59- I've still got my ties.- Have you?
0:23:59 > 0:24:03I did a delivery like this, Littleworth Common,
0:24:03 > 0:24:06which was a rural delivery, had about 120 drops.
0:24:06 > 0:24:10- You've got about, what...? - About 190.- 190, a bit more.
0:24:10 > 0:24:16But, you know, rather than Acacia Avenue, numbers 2 to 40,
0:24:16 > 0:24:18these are all rural addresses.
0:24:18 > 0:24:22Friar's Cross Cottages. Wilcot. Timbers.
0:24:22 > 0:24:23Hurlands.
0:24:23 > 0:24:28So it's a completely different world, being a rural postman, isn't it?
0:24:28 > 0:24:33- Yeah. From the town one, yeah. - You know your customers.
0:24:33 > 0:24:37- Yeah, I know their first name, second name.- You know the families.
0:24:37 > 0:24:38That's it.
0:24:39 > 0:24:42# Return to sender
0:24:43 > 0:24:45# Return to sender
0:24:47 > 0:24:50# I gave a letter to the postman
0:24:50 > 0:24:53# He put it in his sack
0:24:54 > 0:24:57# By early next morning
0:24:57 > 0:25:00# He brought my letter back
0:25:00 > 0:25:02# She wrote upon it... #
0:25:02 > 0:25:04How long did it take you to learn this route?
0:25:05 > 0:25:10- Did you get a week's tuition kind of thing?- No, one day.- One day?!
0:25:10 > 0:25:12Yeah, one day.
0:25:12 > 0:25:14I had to learn this one.
0:25:16 > 0:25:18# We had a quarrel... #
0:25:19 > 0:25:22- Hello.- Good morning.
0:25:22 > 0:25:24How much do you rely on Royal Mail still?
0:25:24 > 0:25:27- It's a very, very important service here.- It is?
0:25:27 > 0:25:30We use it for all our parcels outgoing,
0:25:30 > 0:25:32so we use the Post Office as well in the village.
0:25:32 > 0:25:35You can't send parcels through the internet, that's for sure.
0:25:35 > 0:25:38- That's right.- It strikes me that Dave is the person
0:25:38 > 0:25:40that kind of holds all this together.
0:25:40 > 0:25:42We couldn't survive without him.
0:25:42 > 0:25:44- See you. - Cheers, Dave, see you tomorrow.
0:25:44 > 0:25:46# She wrote upon it
0:25:46 > 0:25:49# Return to sender
0:25:49 > 0:25:52# Address unknown... #
0:25:55 > 0:25:58I had an Irish wolfhound on the delivery I did.
0:25:58 > 0:26:02And it was huge, up to there, looked you in the eye as you went in.
0:26:02 > 0:26:04And it insisted on taking you by the elbow
0:26:04 > 0:26:06and just guiding you to the front door.
0:26:06 > 0:26:08That's what it wanted to do.
0:26:08 > 0:26:11# And if it comes back the very next day
0:26:11 > 0:26:14# Then I'll understand... #
0:26:15 > 0:26:17It looked to me like you had a narrow escape there.
0:26:17 > 0:26:19- No, no, he's all right. - Was he all right?- Yeah.
0:26:19 > 0:26:22Cos tiny dogs nip just as hard as the big ones.
0:26:22 > 0:26:26I was just letting him sniff me first and then he was fine.
0:26:26 > 0:26:28# No such zone... #
0:26:30 > 0:26:32It's another "Beware of the dog".
0:26:33 > 0:26:37- Yeah, they haven't even got a dog. - Haven't they?- No.
0:26:41 > 0:26:44- So this is another small business? - Yeah.
0:26:44 > 0:26:46Operating in the middle of the countryside.
0:26:46 > 0:26:48- Yeah, Magnum Enterprises. - Right.
0:26:48 > 0:26:50- I'm Alan Johnson.- Nice to meet you.
0:26:50 > 0:26:52I'm just following Dave on his round.
0:26:52 > 0:26:54Thank you very much.
0:26:54 > 0:26:56To see how important the Post Office is
0:26:56 > 0:26:58to communities out in rural areas like this.
0:26:58 > 0:27:02You need the post to run the business?
0:27:02 > 0:27:05We couldn't live without the Post Office really.
0:27:05 > 0:27:07Really, not even with the internet? And new technologies?
0:27:07 > 0:27:10Well, we have changed a little bit,
0:27:10 > 0:27:14but, look, we still have post here
0:27:14 > 0:27:18- early in the morning. - Cheques and orders. Right.
0:27:18 > 0:27:21- And this is a clothing company. - Industry, yes, that's right.
0:27:21 > 0:27:26We supply schools and private businesses.
0:27:26 > 0:27:28Does he collect your letters to go out as well?
0:27:28 > 0:27:30Not now, but we're working on that
0:27:30 > 0:27:34because now we are trying to make selling through the internet.
0:27:34 > 0:27:35So now we are starting to do that.
0:27:35 > 0:27:39- So he can take...- So he can take all the packages and the rest.
0:27:39 > 0:27:43- It was lovely to meet you, thank you very much.- And you, bye-bye.
0:27:43 > 0:27:45# Return to sender... #
0:27:45 > 0:27:48These businesses won't just be using Royal Mail.
0:27:48 > 0:27:51Since its monopoly ended in 2000,
0:27:51 > 0:27:54plenty of other companies have started delivering here.
0:27:56 > 0:27:59But Dave and Annie do seem to be part of this community.
0:28:01 > 0:28:03Maybe they've got history to thank for that.
0:28:07 > 0:28:09Because throughout the 20th century,
0:28:09 > 0:28:12the Post Office grew into a monumental
0:28:12 > 0:28:15and ubiquitous feature of British society.
0:28:16 > 0:28:21By 1934, it employed a quarter of a million people.
0:28:21 > 0:28:23It offered a promising career path.
0:28:23 > 0:28:25And workers were represented by
0:28:25 > 0:28:28one of the best organised unions in the country,
0:28:28 > 0:28:29the Post Office Workers Union,
0:28:29 > 0:28:31later the Union of Communication Workers,
0:28:31 > 0:28:33of which I was General Secretary.
0:28:33 > 0:28:35And it didn't just deliver letters,
0:28:35 > 0:28:38it ran the telegraph and telephone systems as well.
0:28:40 > 0:28:44This recruitment film, called A Job In A Million, from 1934,
0:28:44 > 0:28:47shows how school leavers as young as 14
0:28:47 > 0:28:49were keen to join up as telegram boys.
0:28:49 > 0:28:52We take boys in from all types of homes.
0:28:52 > 0:28:56For some boys, it is not so easy to study at home in the evenings.
0:28:56 > 0:28:58Others are more fortunate.
0:28:58 > 0:29:01But in the Post Office, each boy is given an equal chance.
0:29:01 > 0:29:03Now, we want our boys to be happy
0:29:03 > 0:29:06and we want to help them out of their difficulties.
0:29:06 > 0:29:09So come up and see me if ever you are in that position.
0:29:10 > 0:29:14Above all, the Post Office was beginning to embody a new idea -
0:29:14 > 0:29:16the spirit of public service.
0:29:16 > 0:29:21This spirit was often at its strongest not out on delivery,
0:29:21 > 0:29:25but where I started off working, in the sorting office.
0:29:25 > 0:29:29Conditions weren't great - it was dusty, stuffy,
0:29:29 > 0:29:31and you worked standing up.
0:29:31 > 0:29:34But there was a sense of teamwork, of camaraderie,
0:29:34 > 0:29:38and the satisfaction of getting the job done against the clock.
0:29:38 > 0:29:42There was a huge network of these offices right across the country.
0:29:42 > 0:29:45And some of them actually crossed the country.
0:29:48 > 0:29:53Starting in 1858, travelling post offices began crisscrossing
0:29:53 > 0:29:58the nation through the night, their staff sorting the mail as they went.
0:29:58 > 0:30:02These were the men commemorated in the famous film Night Mail.
0:30:04 > 0:30:06This is the night mail crossing the Border
0:30:06 > 0:30:08Bringing the cheque and the postal order
0:30:08 > 0:30:10Letters for the rich, letters for the poor
0:30:10 > 0:30:13The shop at the corner, the girl next door.
0:30:13 > 0:30:15Pulling up Beattock, a steady climb
0:30:15 > 0:30:18The gradient's against her, but she's on time...
0:30:20 > 0:30:22Here at the Nene Valley Railway,
0:30:22 > 0:30:26they've got one of the best surviving examples of the TPO,
0:30:26 > 0:30:28or Travelling Post Office.
0:30:30 > 0:30:34They've also got a chap who worked on one - Brian White.
0:30:35 > 0:30:37I love this.
0:30:37 > 0:30:38I'd forgotten about this.
0:30:38 > 0:30:42- So, as they pulled into each station, you could post a letter. - Oh, yes.
0:30:42 > 0:30:46Why were they sorting as they travelled along?
0:30:46 > 0:30:48Was that because they'd been posted so late?
0:30:48 > 0:30:52- Yeah, it allowed them to get a later posting.- Right.
0:30:52 > 0:30:57But you remember the old days in the Post Office, with the evening rush.
0:30:57 > 0:31:00- Yeah, yeah.- To get that clear,
0:31:00 > 0:31:03these were very handy
0:31:03 > 0:31:06because they could bung the last knockings on here
0:31:06 > 0:31:08and get it delivered first thing next morning.
0:31:08 > 0:31:12- And that was the element of it that was really crucial.- Yeah.
0:31:12 > 0:31:14First division coming over.
0:31:14 > 0:31:16- And again, Bill. - Second division.
0:31:16 > 0:31:18Wow, goodness gracious!
0:31:18 > 0:31:23This is that great Grierson documentary -
0:31:23 > 0:31:27"This is the night mail crossing the border." This is it exactly.
0:31:28 > 0:31:29How that looked.
0:31:29 > 0:31:34Each sorter has 48 pigeonholes, each representing a town.
0:31:35 > 0:31:37The packets are sorted separately.
0:31:39 > 0:31:40As the train progresses,
0:31:40 > 0:31:44the names, scribbled in chalk over the pigeonholes, have to be changed.
0:31:44 > 0:31:46Every frame was like this.
0:31:46 > 0:31:49No mechanisation, everything was dealt with manually.
0:31:49 > 0:31:51You'd manually sort.
0:31:51 > 0:31:53And you'd know the frame really well,
0:31:53 > 0:31:57this is the kind of speed I used to sort at.
0:31:57 > 0:32:01And I used to love starting with a stack of mail
0:32:01 > 0:32:03and ending up clearing the whole lot.
0:32:03 > 0:32:05There was a satisfaction in that.
0:32:05 > 0:32:08When a pigeonhole is filled, the letters are tied in a bundle.
0:32:08 > 0:32:10The bundles are put into the labelled bags
0:32:10 > 0:32:12hanging behind the sorters.
0:32:13 > 0:32:16So, you started on the TPOs in 1960,
0:32:16 > 0:32:18- you started in the Post Office in '52.- Yeah.
0:32:18 > 0:32:23I did hear a few stories, they were perhaps myths going around,
0:32:23 > 0:32:26about TPO men, particularly on the Up Special,
0:32:26 > 0:32:29- who had one life in Glasgow and another life down here.- Oh, yeah!
0:32:29 > 0:32:30Yeah, yeah.
0:32:30 > 0:32:33- Including whole families. - Yeah, yeah, yeah,
0:32:33 > 0:32:36oh, yeah, that's absolutely true.
0:32:36 > 0:32:38It was the perfect job for a bigamist.
0:32:38 > 0:32:41THEY LAUGH
0:32:41 > 0:32:47Key to the success and speed of the TPO was a cunning piece of kit,
0:32:47 > 0:32:49known as the apparatus.
0:32:49 > 0:32:52This allowed mailbags to be dropped off,
0:32:52 > 0:32:54and others simultaneously picked up,
0:32:54 > 0:32:57without the train stopping or even slowing down.
0:32:57 > 0:32:59MAN SHOUTING
0:32:59 > 0:33:03The Nene Valley Railway has one of these historical devices
0:33:03 > 0:33:04in full working order.
0:33:04 > 0:33:06Right, now I feel the part.
0:33:06 > 0:33:08'So I'm going to give it a go.'
0:33:16 > 0:33:18# Hey, look yonder comin'
0:33:19 > 0:33:22# Comin' down that railroad track
0:33:22 > 0:33:25# Hey, look yonder comin'
0:33:25 > 0:33:29# Comin' down that railroad track
0:33:29 > 0:33:32# It's that Orange Blossom special
0:33:32 > 0:33:34# Bringin' my baby back... #
0:33:34 > 0:33:38INDISTINCT SPEECH
0:33:42 > 0:33:44- Hang her out now?- No, no.
0:33:44 > 0:33:47You want two bridges and 45 beats.
0:33:50 > 0:33:51One, two...
0:33:54 > 0:33:55Now!
0:33:57 > 0:33:59Perfect.
0:34:01 > 0:34:03One off, one back.
0:34:10 > 0:34:12I'm quite proud of myself for that.
0:34:23 > 0:34:24One dropped off, one picked up.
0:34:30 > 0:34:32That great John Grierson film,
0:34:32 > 0:34:36with the WH Auden poem, "This is the night mail crossing the border
0:34:36 > 0:34:38"Bringing the cheque and the post in order,"
0:34:38 > 0:34:40for many people,
0:34:40 > 0:34:44that sums up everything we've been talking about
0:34:44 > 0:34:47with the Post Office and its long history and...
0:34:47 > 0:34:51and its importance in people's lives.
0:34:51 > 0:34:57I just wish I'd spent one night working as part of the team
0:34:57 > 0:34:59on a TPO, just one night.
0:34:59 > 0:35:03Cos anyone watching the Grierson film has to realise,
0:35:03 > 0:35:06that was early '30s, it was exactly like that...
0:35:07 > 0:35:11..at the Millennium, which was the last time these TPOs ran...
0:35:11 > 0:35:13nothing had changed.
0:35:17 > 0:35:19But in the early 1900s,
0:35:19 > 0:35:22the Post Office was facing another transport headache.
0:35:22 > 0:35:24London to Glasgow was a cinch.
0:35:24 > 0:35:29But getting across London itself was becoming a nightmare.
0:35:29 > 0:35:32So in 1927, the Post Office drew up some plans
0:35:32 > 0:35:36for a system of tunnels and began to dig.
0:35:36 > 0:35:39Here, under Mount Pleasant sorting office, the remains of this
0:35:39 > 0:35:43secret underground are maintained by engineer Ray Middlesworth.
0:35:46 > 0:35:51- So, Ray, this has been your workplace for the last 28 years. - Yeah.
0:35:51 > 0:35:55For the last 12 years, nothing much has happened on it.
0:35:55 > 0:35:58But this was a great innovation, wasn't it?
0:35:58 > 0:36:02- The Post Office's own underground railway system.- It was.
0:36:02 > 0:36:06They were concerned in 1909 about the congestion in London's streets
0:36:06 > 0:36:10and the Post Office proposed the idea of an electric railway
0:36:10 > 0:36:13to connect their district offices in central London
0:36:13 > 0:36:14to deal with that problem.
0:36:15 > 0:36:18Skinner KB, ready to start up at ten o'clock.
0:36:18 > 0:36:21This Tube has 6.5 miles of track,
0:36:21 > 0:36:23stretching from Paddington in the west
0:36:23 > 0:36:25to Liverpool Street in the east,
0:36:25 > 0:36:27linking with six other major sorting offices en route.
0:36:29 > 0:36:31This was a completely... Post Office system.
0:36:31 > 0:36:34It was isolated from the other networks,
0:36:34 > 0:36:36there was no physical connection
0:36:36 > 0:36:39other than chutes connecting us to the railway stations.
0:36:39 > 0:36:44While central London's road traffic crawls overhead at an average 12mph,
0:36:44 > 0:36:46these fully automatic miniature trains speed
0:36:46 > 0:36:50300 tonnes of mail across the capital every day without interruption.
0:36:52 > 0:36:55There's very few people who know this exists.
0:36:55 > 0:36:58This used to be called the Post Office's best-kept secret.
0:36:58 > 0:37:00And for a long time it was.
0:37:00 > 0:37:02Cos the Royal Mail would get on with their business
0:37:02 > 0:37:07and wouldn't really advertise what they'd done to achieve their ends,
0:37:07 > 0:37:11although it was very innovative and they were pioneers in lots of ways.
0:37:11 > 0:37:13What's the future for Mail Rail?
0:37:13 > 0:37:17Well, Mount Pleasant Station is going to become a museum
0:37:17 > 0:37:21and a theme ride for the public, so they can come down,
0:37:21 > 0:37:22ride on a modified train
0:37:22 > 0:37:25and experience a mail bag's view of Mail Rail.
0:37:26 > 0:37:29'The museum won't open until 2017,
0:37:29 > 0:37:31'but today I'm getting a free preview ride.'
0:37:31 > 0:37:34Right, so I can get in anywhere?
0:37:34 > 0:37:36Yeah, you can take your pick of seats.
0:37:36 > 0:37:39- I recommend this one. - Yeah? In the middle there, OK.
0:37:41 > 0:37:43Wonderful.
0:37:44 > 0:37:46Wow.
0:37:48 > 0:37:49This is terrific.
0:38:15 > 0:38:18Any mail travelling between Whitechapel and Paddington
0:38:18 > 0:38:21had probably made this route.
0:38:21 > 0:38:27It's a bit like a ghost railway, like one of those things at the funfair.
0:38:27 > 0:38:29You go on a ghost train.
0:38:29 > 0:38:32But it's a part of the Post Office that I never saw.
0:38:32 > 0:38:36People who worked in Mount Pleasant all their working lives,
0:38:36 > 0:38:3840 years, and never came down here.
0:38:41 > 0:38:44The Mail Rail might have been hidden from public view,
0:38:44 > 0:38:47but the rest of Royal Mail's kit certainly isn't.
0:38:47 > 0:38:50For 100 years, its bright red bikes, vans and pillar boxes
0:38:50 > 0:38:54have been a defining feature of the British landscape.
0:38:54 > 0:38:57Here at the British Postal Museum storage facility,
0:38:57 > 0:38:59an incredible archive of objects,
0:38:59 > 0:39:03tracing the physical history of the Royal Mail,
0:39:03 > 0:39:06is lovingly maintained by curator Julian Stray.
0:39:08 > 0:39:11- It's British social history, isn't it?- Absolutely. In artefacts.
0:39:11 > 0:39:14The Post Office has touched everyone's life
0:39:14 > 0:39:17and continues to do so even today.
0:39:17 > 0:39:23This is very familiar to me because that's the moped that I rode.
0:39:23 > 0:39:25Runabout, was it? A Raleigh Runabout?
0:39:25 > 0:39:27- That's the one, the Raleigh Runabout.- There you go.
0:39:27 > 0:39:30Usually, cos I had the heaviest delivery in Europe, obviously,
0:39:30 > 0:39:33two bags on the back,
0:39:33 > 0:39:36so each one 40 pounds, so 80 pounds of mail on the back,
0:39:36 > 0:39:38but what I used to do
0:39:38 > 0:39:41was leave this behind some old people's flats
0:39:41 > 0:39:43in Dropmore Road in Burnham,
0:39:43 > 0:39:46take one of the sacks and walk around
0:39:46 > 0:39:48and leave the other one there.
0:39:48 > 0:39:51And, you know, nothing ever got nicked.
0:39:55 > 0:39:58- A Morris Commercial.- Gorgeous, aren't they?- Yeah.
0:39:58 > 0:40:01I never drove that. I drove the Leyland.
0:40:01 > 0:40:03I drove the 240 Austin.
0:40:03 > 0:40:06I drove the...the one on the end.
0:40:06 > 0:40:10- It's easier to say which you never drove, isn't it?- It is, yeah.
0:40:10 > 0:40:11It makes me feel very old.
0:40:11 > 0:40:14I never went on a horse and cart.
0:40:16 > 0:40:18But taking pride of place in this collection
0:40:18 > 0:40:21is the most iconic item of all - the pillar box,
0:40:21 > 0:40:23in all its many variations.
0:40:23 > 0:40:29The first pillar boxes were erected in London in 1855.
0:40:29 > 0:40:31None of those survive now.
0:40:31 > 0:40:35What does survive is one of the original collection plates.
0:40:35 > 0:40:39If you look, we've got one, two, three, four, five, six, seven
0:40:39 > 0:40:43- eight, nine, ten collections of mail...- Yeah.
0:40:43 > 0:40:46..and the same number of deliveries the same day.
0:40:46 > 0:40:49You could post a letter first thing in the morning,
0:40:49 > 0:40:52- have it delivered perhaps a couple of hours later...- Yeah.
0:40:52 > 0:40:55- ..have a reply sent to you...- Yeah.
0:40:55 > 0:40:57..post a reply to that.
0:40:57 > 0:41:00Almost the equivalent of an e-mail these days, isn't it?
0:41:00 > 0:41:02Yeah, and this was before the telephone.
0:41:02 > 0:41:06- Each one of these was bespoke to the box it was on.- Yeah.
0:41:06 > 0:41:08Cos it actually said the distance you are
0:41:08 > 0:41:10- from the head post office as well.- Yeah.
0:41:14 > 0:41:17George Orwell wrote a famous essay,
0:41:17 > 0:41:19The Lion And The Unicorn,
0:41:19 > 0:41:25about England and talking about cricket and warm beer
0:41:25 > 0:41:28and red postboxes, he said.
0:41:28 > 0:41:30And it is...Britain.
0:41:30 > 0:41:34It's interwoven into our history.
0:41:34 > 0:41:38Someone could come here from any part of the world,
0:41:38 > 0:41:40just like they know they're in London
0:41:40 > 0:41:43when they see a double-decker red bus,
0:41:43 > 0:41:46they know they're in this country when they see a red pillar box.
0:41:46 > 0:41:49It's an amazing bit of continuity.
0:41:54 > 0:41:57Orwell wrote that love letter to England and the pillar box
0:41:57 > 0:41:59in the 1940s.
0:42:02 > 0:42:05By the time I joined the Post Office in the late '60s,
0:42:05 > 0:42:11that image was only half the story because, after decades of stability,
0:42:11 > 0:42:13some would say stagnation,
0:42:13 > 0:42:17the Royal Mail was once again feeling the winds of change.
0:42:19 > 0:42:20In many ways, by the 1960s,
0:42:20 > 0:42:24it's become a lot like it was in the 1830s.
0:42:24 > 0:42:26Remember we talked about in the 1830s,
0:42:26 > 0:42:27people were going round saying,
0:42:27 > 0:42:29"It's nice, the Post Office,
0:42:29 > 0:42:32"it's a wonderful, historic institution,
0:42:32 > 0:42:36"but it's backward-looking, it's too conservative,
0:42:36 > 0:42:39"it's not open-minded, it doesn't embrace new ideas.
0:42:39 > 0:42:41"Society's moved on.
0:42:41 > 0:42:47"And the Post Office needs to be given a really good shake."
0:42:47 > 0:42:49And Rowland Hill did it.
0:42:49 > 0:42:52Well, in the 1960s, that feeling is growing -
0:42:52 > 0:42:54it has to be given a really good shake.
0:42:54 > 0:42:57And then they got a really good shaker.
0:42:57 > 0:43:00MUSIC: You Really Got Me by The Kinks
0:43:02 > 0:43:06In 1964, Anthony Wedgwood Benn, better known as Tony,
0:43:06 > 0:43:11was appointed Postmaster General by Prime Minister Harold Wilson.
0:43:11 > 0:43:13Just 39 at the time, he was determined to modernise
0:43:13 > 0:43:16what he thought was an institution firmly stuck in a rut.
0:43:18 > 0:43:21'Tony's son Hillary remembers the period well.'
0:43:22 > 0:43:27Your father came in as a young man into an institution
0:43:27 > 0:43:30that had hardly changed since 1840, I guess.
0:43:30 > 0:43:34It was a big job to take on as Postmaster General.
0:43:34 > 0:43:37He walked through the door and discovered the Post Office
0:43:37 > 0:43:39employed nearly 400,000 people,
0:43:39 > 0:43:46it ran a bank, it was responsible for broadcasting, telecoms,
0:43:46 > 0:43:49satellites, and of course the Post Office
0:43:49 > 0:43:50and its very own railway.
0:43:50 > 0:43:53Dad started by saying, "I want to meet all of the director generals
0:43:53 > 0:43:56"and I want to hear about what they do."
0:43:56 > 0:43:58So he was restless, he was energetic,
0:43:58 > 0:44:02he had a lot of ideas, but I think the senior officials
0:44:02 > 0:44:05and the permanent secretary just didn't know what had hit them.
0:44:05 > 0:44:08# See, don't ever set me free
0:44:08 > 0:44:10# I always want to be by your side... #
0:44:10 > 0:44:13One Christmas Day evening, he said to me,
0:44:13 > 0:44:14"H, do you want to come with me?
0:44:14 > 0:44:18- "I'm going to the two post offices that are open."- Did he call you H?
0:44:18 > 0:44:20- Were you H?- I was H, that's me.
0:44:20 > 0:44:23And we went to Trafalgar Square and, I think, King Edward Street
0:44:23 > 0:44:25and he took two bottles of whisky,
0:44:25 > 0:44:28which he handed across the counter to the staff in there.
0:44:28 > 0:44:30I think they were slightly bemused to see this bloke turning up
0:44:30 > 0:44:35on Christmas Day evening, claiming to be the Postmaster General.
0:44:35 > 0:44:37But he went to say, "Look, thanks very much for working
0:44:37 > 0:44:41"cos we've got the day off and you haven't and thanks for what you do."
0:44:44 > 0:44:48He decided the Post Office must break away from the civil service
0:44:48 > 0:44:51where it had been virtually since 1516
0:44:51 > 0:44:55and should split between post and telecoms
0:44:55 > 0:44:59and that was something that, if he hadn't been Postmaster General,
0:44:59 > 0:45:02would never have happened because the Treasury disapproved.
0:45:02 > 0:45:05Callaghan, as the Chancellor, disapproved and normally,
0:45:05 > 0:45:08that would have been the end of the matter, but he fought it through.
0:45:08 > 0:45:10He did and he had a lot of battles.
0:45:10 > 0:45:12This is the middle of the 1960s,
0:45:12 > 0:45:14this is a time of extraordinary change.
0:45:14 > 0:45:18I mean, Wilson had talked in '63 about the white heat of technology
0:45:18 > 0:45:22and Dad was really keen on all of this
0:45:22 > 0:45:24and of course the Post Office Tower,
0:45:24 > 0:45:28which put Britain at the leading edge of technological innovation.
0:45:31 > 0:45:35The Post Office Tower became a symbol of modern, hi-tech Britain.
0:45:35 > 0:45:38This was a time before Canary Wharf and the Shard,
0:45:38 > 0:45:40before private money swept into London
0:45:40 > 0:45:44and started changing the skyline beyond recognition.
0:45:44 > 0:45:46A time when it was taken for granted
0:45:46 > 0:45:49that a service could be both publicly owned
0:45:49 > 0:45:51and right at the cutting edge of progress.
0:45:53 > 0:45:56This new spirit of optimism was expressed in another
0:45:56 > 0:45:58of Tony Benn's many innovations -
0:45:58 > 0:46:01he decided that the Great British postage stamp
0:46:01 > 0:46:03was in need of a revamp.
0:46:05 > 0:46:07'To help him do this, he enlisted
0:46:07 > 0:46:11'one of Britain's most creative young artists, David Gentleman.
0:46:11 > 0:46:14'David began designing stamps in 1962
0:46:14 > 0:46:19'when the idea of a commemorative issue was first introduced.
0:46:19 > 0:46:21'He would go on to become
0:46:21 > 0:46:25'one of the most prolific stamp designers in the country.'
0:46:25 > 0:46:26When I started work,
0:46:26 > 0:46:31what I most wanted to do was for my work to be seen.
0:46:31 > 0:46:34I didn't mind what it was, as long as it was seen.
0:46:34 > 0:46:39The excitement of knowing that there were millions in circulation
0:46:39 > 0:46:42was quite heady for a while.
0:46:42 > 0:46:47One day, Tony Benn rang up and said, "Come and visit me,"
0:46:47 > 0:46:50in his very grand office.
0:46:50 > 0:46:54It was like the private being called in to see the field marshal.
0:46:54 > 0:46:57I was terrified, but he was unbelievably, as you can imagine,
0:46:57 > 0:47:01charming and easy to get on with.
0:47:01 > 0:47:04Britain was the only country in the world
0:47:04 > 0:47:06that wasn't named on its stamps.
0:47:06 > 0:47:09It was the unmistakable image of the Queen's head
0:47:09 > 0:47:11that told you where the stamp was from,
0:47:11 > 0:47:14but Benn asked David to do the unthinkable -
0:47:14 > 0:47:18design a range of stamps that left the head out altogether.
0:47:18 > 0:47:22Beheading the Queen here, you are!
0:47:22 > 0:47:29And the Post Office top brass were really amazingly appalled.
0:47:29 > 0:47:32And Tony didn't stop there.
0:47:32 > 0:47:35As a privy councillor, he had access to Her Majesty herself
0:47:35 > 0:47:41so he simply went round to show her the new designs - in person.
0:47:41 > 0:47:43And he got down on his knees
0:47:43 > 0:47:46because he laid the books out in front of him
0:47:46 > 0:47:48and his diary records how he handed them to the Queen
0:47:48 > 0:47:52- so she could examine them. - So the Queen says,
0:47:52 > 0:47:55"Well, the trouble is I've never seen anything like this,"
0:47:55 > 0:47:59and your dad says, "Well, it just so happens I have some with me."
0:47:59 > 0:48:02- And he's on his...- He's on his knees.
0:48:02 > 0:48:04On the carpet, in front of Her Majesty.
0:48:04 > 0:48:06In front of the Queen, passing these designs
0:48:06 > 0:48:08so she could have a look at them.
0:48:08 > 0:48:10So it must have been quite a spectacle,
0:48:10 > 0:48:12but the Palace was not amused.
0:48:15 > 0:48:18In the back of my mind, I had a kind of fallback position,
0:48:18 > 0:48:24which was that it would be much easier to fit in alongside
0:48:24 > 0:48:28the other elements in a pictorial or emblematic design
0:48:28 > 0:48:31if it was a little emblem itself.
0:48:31 > 0:48:34So I suggested it should be made into a silhouette.
0:48:34 > 0:48:38- Right, and every subsequent issue had the silhouette head.- That's correct.
0:48:38 > 0:48:41- Rather than the photograph of Her Majesty.- Correct.
0:48:41 > 0:48:44David still has the original woodcut he made
0:48:44 > 0:48:48that became the new-style Queen's head silhouette -
0:48:48 > 0:48:50a very British compromise.
0:48:50 > 0:48:52The changes to the Post Office ushered in by Benn
0:48:52 > 0:48:55might have seemed radical, but they were really
0:48:55 > 0:48:59just the beginning of the biggest revolution the service had ever seen.
0:48:59 > 0:49:02Automatic sorting systems kept getting better,
0:49:02 > 0:49:06which in turn transformed the job and reduced the workforce.
0:49:06 > 0:49:09Mechanical handling and sorting for letters
0:49:09 > 0:49:11is the real postal revolution.
0:49:11 > 0:49:14The first machine separates the fat and oversized letters
0:49:14 > 0:49:16from those the equipment can handle.
0:49:16 > 0:49:19The next machine sizes them into long and short
0:49:19 > 0:49:22and then divides the stream into first- and second-class mail.
0:49:22 > 0:49:25This is code sorting.
0:49:25 > 0:49:27The postman types the postal code onto the letter
0:49:27 > 0:49:29in two lines of phosphor dots.
0:49:29 > 0:49:33The postal code, if fully used, cuts out all hand-sorting.
0:49:33 > 0:49:38The electronic translator does the whole operation.
0:49:38 > 0:49:40Then in the 1980s under Margaret Thatcher,
0:49:40 > 0:49:44the telephone part of the business was privatised as British Telecom.
0:49:44 > 0:49:47# Gimme a ticket for an aeroplane
0:49:47 > 0:49:50# Ain't got time to take a fast train... #
0:49:50 > 0:49:51It was around this time
0:49:51 > 0:49:54that I started getting seriously involved in union work
0:49:54 > 0:49:56until I finally left the Post Office
0:49:56 > 0:50:00to become a full-time officer of the Communication Workers Union.
0:50:00 > 0:50:05I delivered my last letter in 1987 from this sorting office
0:50:05 > 0:50:10in Slough, just west of London, where I had worked for almost 20 years.
0:50:10 > 0:50:16Nothing has changed at all. All of this is exactly as I remember it.
0:50:17 > 0:50:20I'd put my name forward for branch chairman,
0:50:20 > 0:50:22and if I hadn't become branch chairman in '76,
0:50:22 > 0:50:24I wouldn't have become an executive council member,
0:50:24 > 0:50:26I wouldn't have become general secretary,
0:50:26 > 0:50:28I wouldn't have gone into Parliament.
0:50:28 > 0:50:32I'd have been a postman, just now thinking about retirement, probably.
0:50:32 > 0:50:36Er, and that would have suited me fine!
0:50:38 > 0:50:42What I couldn't have predicted was that a revolution even bigger
0:50:42 > 0:50:46than Rowland Hill's penny black was on the way - e-mail.
0:50:47 > 0:50:50For a while, it seemed that the postman's days were numbered,
0:50:50 > 0:50:53but today, things seem to be looking up.
0:50:57 > 0:51:02And it's parcels, not letters, that look set to define
0:51:02 > 0:51:06the future of the Royal Mail and to take the business global.
0:51:09 > 0:51:13This state-of-the-art facility on the edge of Heathrow Airport
0:51:13 > 0:51:17is where the future of my old employer is to be found.
0:51:17 > 0:51:20Here, the job that used to require thousands of workers - sorting -
0:51:20 > 0:51:24can be done by a handful of staff with the help of technology.
0:51:28 > 0:51:31I've seen some equipment and I've seen some pretty jazzy stuff.
0:51:31 > 0:51:34I've not seen anything like this. This is HUGE!
0:51:34 > 0:51:37This site is the one site
0:51:37 > 0:51:40through which all the international letter mail leaves the country,
0:51:40 > 0:51:43and this machine actually automatically
0:51:43 > 0:51:48sorts parcels for us through hybrid coding systems.
0:51:48 > 0:51:53Somewhere in there are human beings looking at the parcel,
0:51:53 > 0:51:59- saying, "Zimbabwe."- Correct. - Just as simple as that.
0:51:59 > 0:52:01And there shouldn't be any further intervention,
0:52:01 > 0:52:04anyone touching that item, until it gets to Zimbabwe.
0:52:06 > 0:52:11When this site was built, letter was king, parcel was not as great
0:52:11 > 0:52:17and I think what we're seeing in the current era is parcel,
0:52:17 > 0:52:20through e-commerce and internet shopping,
0:52:20 > 0:52:24is huge, and of course letter mail is beginning to diminish a bit.
0:52:24 > 0:52:29And in this vast emporium here, is there no-one in some little corner,
0:52:29 > 0:52:33standing in front of a sorting frame, manually sorting letters?
0:52:33 > 0:52:37- Yes, it still has to happen. - Does it?
0:52:37 > 0:52:42There are still some items that we can't sort by machine
0:52:42 > 0:52:45so we do have oversizes and that sort of thing
0:52:45 > 0:52:47and there are still items that cannot,
0:52:47 > 0:52:50in this day and age, be read automatically.
0:52:51 > 0:52:55Visiting this futuristic sorting office really brings home to me
0:52:55 > 0:52:59just how much things have moved on since my day.
0:52:59 > 0:53:01I wonder if I would have been happy
0:53:01 > 0:53:03to be delivering more parcels than letters.
0:53:03 > 0:53:06There was something about delivering a letter that felt personal
0:53:06 > 0:53:09and there was a satisfaction in that for me.
0:53:09 > 0:53:14With the shift to e-mail, not to mention texts and tweets,
0:53:14 > 0:53:19I can't help thinking we're in danger of losing something precious.
0:53:19 > 0:53:21'Author Simon Garfield has written about letters
0:53:21 > 0:53:24'and their power to change lives.'
0:53:24 > 0:53:27Simon, I loved your description of letters
0:53:27 > 0:53:30as "the lubricant of human interaction".
0:53:30 > 0:53:33I delivered these letters at a time
0:53:33 > 0:53:36without really thinking about it profoundly,
0:53:36 > 0:53:41when they were still that crucial link between people.
0:53:41 > 0:53:45Do you think, looking at the history of it,
0:53:45 > 0:53:50that somehow e-mails can replace them or text messages can replace them?
0:53:50 > 0:53:53- No...- Is it not just a new form of transmission?
0:53:53 > 0:53:55No, there's a kind of irony
0:53:55 > 0:53:58that we communicate more now than we ever did.
0:53:58 > 0:54:03I don't think we write with as much depth as we used to write letters.
0:54:03 > 0:54:07Researching a recent book, Simon stumbled across a treasure trove
0:54:07 > 0:54:12of correspondence that really shows the power of the humble letter.
0:54:12 > 0:54:14These letters were adapted for the stage,
0:54:14 > 0:54:18performed by Sherlock's Benedict Cumberbatch and Louise Brealey.
0:54:18 > 0:54:22I mean, who can't relate to this? It's so lovely.
0:54:22 > 0:54:26"11th of December 1944.
0:54:26 > 0:54:33"Dearest Christopher, it is not easy to surrender myself so completely
0:54:33 > 0:54:35"as I am doing at my age,
0:54:35 > 0:54:39"a much more tender age to be in love than at 20.
0:54:39 > 0:54:42"You have caused an upheaval within -
0:54:42 > 0:54:48"an upheaval that contains so much sweetness, ecstasy and pain,
0:54:48 > 0:54:51"something I didn't think I was going to know,
0:54:51 > 0:54:54"something that I thought did not exist
0:54:54 > 0:54:55"because I had not known it.
0:54:55 > 0:54:57"It is new to me.
0:54:57 > 0:54:59"You are new to me."
0:55:01 > 0:55:04The correspondence was from a man called Chris Barker,
0:55:04 > 0:55:07who was a career postman,
0:55:07 > 0:55:09but when he was called up
0:55:09 > 0:55:11and obviously reserved occupation for a bit
0:55:11 > 0:55:16and then called up finally in 1943, he wrote to everyone -
0:55:16 > 0:55:18his family and all of his friends
0:55:18 > 0:55:20and he wrote to a woman called Bessie Moore.
0:55:20 > 0:55:23And Bessie Moore was someone he used to work with.
0:55:23 > 0:55:26They'd went away on a sort of training camp for the Post Office,
0:55:26 > 0:55:30they were sort of friends, but not intimate.
0:55:30 > 0:55:35Within about three months, there was this incredibly passionate affair,
0:55:35 > 0:55:37just conducted through the mail.
0:55:37 > 0:55:39They couldn't really remember what they looked like, even,
0:55:39 > 0:55:43but they were falling in love with their words and the post.
0:55:43 > 0:55:45Oh, this is lovely!
0:55:45 > 0:55:49"Oh, for the time when I might awaken during the night,
0:55:49 > 0:55:53"hear you breathing beside me, feel the warmth from your body
0:55:53 > 0:55:55"and snuggle down in sheer happiness
0:55:55 > 0:55:58"and comfort in the knowledge of your presence."
0:55:58 > 0:56:02I mean, of course he was going to fall in love with her.
0:56:02 > 0:56:03She's amazing.
0:56:03 > 0:56:06I think one of the most extraordinary things about it
0:56:06 > 0:56:11is they would never have the courage to say those words to each other.
0:56:11 > 0:56:13There's a moment where he describes kissing,
0:56:13 > 0:56:16he kisses his own signature - this is Chris,
0:56:16 > 0:56:19this sort of funny, stiff, little sort of lovely bloke -
0:56:19 > 0:56:21and he's a little embarrassed by this,
0:56:21 > 0:56:24but he still tells her that he's done it
0:56:24 > 0:56:26because he thinks if she then kisses it,
0:56:26 > 0:56:31that they have exchanged something physical, and I think that the sort
0:56:31 > 0:56:38of physical fact of letters is worth reminding ourselves of.
0:56:39 > 0:56:41The thing that I would think
0:56:41 > 0:56:44is that we will never find that kind of trove.
0:56:44 > 0:56:48We will not find love e-mails in the attic.
0:56:48 > 0:56:52We've communicated by and through the mail
0:56:52 > 0:56:55in one form or another going back 2,000 years,
0:56:55 > 0:56:58but we're just happy to abandon that.
0:56:58 > 0:57:02When I left the Post Office, I didn't just leave a job.
0:57:02 > 0:57:05It felt like leaving a family, corny as it sounds.
0:57:05 > 0:57:08Today, most of my old mates from those days
0:57:08 > 0:57:10are enjoying their retirement.
0:57:10 > 0:57:13I wonder what they'd make of the changes I've seen.
0:57:13 > 0:57:18And look at this lot! It's as if it's 1987.
0:57:18 > 0:57:22- There's a bunch I remember. Charlie! - Pleased to meet you, Alan.
0:57:22 > 0:57:25- Long time no see!- You've filled out a little bit, but...
0:57:25 > 0:57:27Only 5st, not a lot!
0:57:27 > 0:57:32The great thing about this office was we had people from all over.
0:57:32 > 0:57:35You transferred in from Wales, I transferred in from London
0:57:35 > 0:57:38and of course you had people from Pakistan and from India.
0:57:38 > 0:57:42The camaraderie then was brilliant, wasn't it?
0:57:42 > 0:57:45My conclusion to you bunch of old codgers,
0:57:45 > 0:57:47apart from you, cos you're still working,
0:57:47 > 0:57:49is that it's a much harder job nowadays
0:57:49 > 0:57:52- than it used to be in our day. - I can't believe it.
0:57:52 > 0:57:54You're not having any of that, no, no, no.
0:57:54 > 0:57:58MUSIC: Please Mr Postman by The Beatles
0:57:58 > 0:58:00'I'm proud I was a postman.
0:58:00 > 0:58:03'I always felt I was part of a great public service.
0:58:03 > 0:58:07'Whether that service will survive the 21st century, who can say?
0:58:07 > 0:58:10'I guess it depends on us using it.
0:58:10 > 0:58:13'So why not use it tomorrow to send someone a letter?
0:58:13 > 0:58:16'You could even write to your MP.'
0:58:17 > 0:58:21# There must be some word today
0:58:21 > 0:58:25# From my girlfriend so far away
0:58:25 > 0:58:29# Please, Mr Postman, look and see
0:58:29 > 0:58:33# If there's a letter A letter for me
0:58:33 > 0:58:37# I been standing here waiting, Mr Postman
0:58:37 > 0:58:41# So patiently
0:58:41 > 0:58:46# For just a card or just a letter... #