Tag: Royal Mail

Royal Mail goes back in time to uncover a more personal Valentine’s Day

 
  • Royal Mail is celebrating Valentine’s Day by reaching into the archives and revealing the intriguing history of sending love through the post
  • The historic cards, which can be viewed in an online gallery, feature striking designs of lace, fabric flowers and mechanical elements revealing a hidden message or scene
  • Visitors to the gallery can create their own Victorian puzzle purse card using our special template and step-by-step instructions, available here
  • The collection also includes ‘Vinegar Valentines’, a curious social phenomenon of sending offensive notes on Valentine’s Day.
Royal Mail is celebrating Valentine’s Day by reaching into the archives and revealing the intriguing history of sending love through the post.

Royal Mail is exploring the history of sending Valentine’s cards, while outlining how different generations of Brits have sought to make their missives more memorable over the years.

An online gallery, illustrated with beautiful examples of cards through the ages, reveals the intriguing history of Valentine’s Day cards. It also provides a step-by-step guide for site visitors to create a Victorian-style puzzle purse card, allowing them to make their own personalised tribute to a loved one.

The Victorian Puzzle Purse card

The tradition of sending Valentine’s cards first began in the late 18th Century. Many people crafted their own intricate cards that were gifts in themselves. The earliest surviving example of a handmade Valentine’s card dates from 1790, and is known as a puzzle purse or courtship envelope.

The elaborate design has to be unfolded in a particular way in order to reveal the hidden verses of poetry inside.

Puzzle Purse Valentine, c.1790. Image courtesy of The Postal Museum

Visitors to the gallery can create their own version of this unusual card with Royal Mail’s special puzzle purse template, available to download here,along with special instructions. You can also watch our playful stop-motion animation of the card being made here.

Intricate printed cards become popular

As Valentine’s cards grew in popularity, printed cards became increasingly fashionable. The example below was the first ever printed card to be published, by John Fairburn in 1797.

This delicate design includes hand-painted cupids, doves and flowers, as well as a lace effect produced by piercing the corners of the paper. However, the messages were a lot more formal and considerably less direct than today’s expressions of love. The handwritten message inside the card reads:

“As I have repeatedly requested you to come I think you must have some reason for not complying with my request, but as I have something particular to say to you I could wish you make it all agreeable to come on Sunday next without fail and in doing you will oblige your well wisher.”

First printed Valentine’s card, published in 1797 by John Fairburn. Image courtesy of York Museums Trust

Valentine’s cards soared in popularity following the introduction of the Penny Post in 1840. This allowed standard letters to be sent anywhere in the UK for just a penny, and extended the practice of sending Valentine’s correspondence beyond the upper classes to the whole of society.

With increased demand came the widespread production of highly ornate cards. Many featured mechanical parts which worked to uncover a hidden message or scene.  According to experts at The Postal Museum, some men would spend up to a month’s wages on a card, such as this example with gilt-embossed paper lace and fabric flowers.

‘Your love my happiness’ Valentine Card, c.1870. Image courtesy of The Postal Museum

A gold scrap at the bottom displays the message. The girl is printed using an early form of multicolour lithography and is surrounded by fabric and waxed flowers.

Vinegar Valentines

However, not all Valentine’s correspondence was so cordial. So-called ‘Vinegar Valentines’ were popular in the Victorian era as a means of insulting or making fun of the recipient.

These venomous cards generally came in the form of rude poems and offensive drawings. To add insult to injury, before the introduction of the Penny Post in 1840, the recipient had to pay the postage charge themselves.

A range of attributes could provide the basis for insults, including the recipient’s looks, temperament, profession or relationship. In this particular Vinegar Valentine, a man resembling a frog is about to kiss an unattractive woman. A rhyme at the bottom reads:

Madam I’ve found a Beau for you.

So perfect match’d, I’m sure he’ill do

For he like you does take delight

To make his form a very fright.

Design for a Vinegar Valentine, c.1790. Image courtesy of The Postal Museum

Many more intriguing examples of these historic cards can be found in Royal Mail’s online gallery.

Sending messages of love through the post is still an important part of Valentine’s Day today. According to the Greeting Card Association, £43.7 million worth of cards was sold in 2016.

Royal Mail Head of Public Affairs, David Gold, said: “It’s touching to see how over the years the Valentine’s card has cemented its role as the primary way of expressing our love for one another on February 14. It’s clear that the personal touch of setting pen to paper has in no way diminished its appeal on Valentine’s Day over that time.

“Royal Mail is proud of the role it has played in the evolution of Valentine’s cards, supporting both a rich history of beautiful design as well as enabling massive social change.

“The puzzle purse card is a great idea for those wishing to send something unique this February.”

Discover the puzzle purse template and instructions here.

 

Pink Floyd: Royal Mail issues special stamps to honour rock legends

Royal Mail has revealed images of a set of ten stamps that will be issued to mark 50 years since Pink Floyd turned professional and became the ‘house band’ of the London Underground movement of music and arts.
Pink-Floyd-Stamps-Full
The stamps are now available to pre-order at
and will be available to purchase from 8,000 Post Offices from 7 July 2016.
Six stamps feature iconic album covers: The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn; Atom Heart Mother;The Dark Side Of The Moon; Wish You Were Here; Animals and The Endless River.
The band is renowned for its innovative album covers, many of which have become design classics. Through working with leading graphic designers and photographers, they established a body of work that is instantly recognisable, with album cover art considered among the most iconic ever created.
Most of the band’s album covers were devised by Hipgnosis, co-founded by Aubrey Powell and Storm Thorgerson in 1968. They were at the forefront of album cover design, using experimental techniques in photography and multiple exposures, and retouching to create the startling images.
A further four stamps within a miniature sheet celebrate the live performances of the band. Arguably the most visually literate band of all time, as well as being one of the most successful, their live appearances were renowned. They were among the first groups to make extensive use of light shows and projection of films for their appearances, increasing in ambition over the decades.
The four images convey the experience of these live performances, from the appearances at the influential UFO Club, London in 1966 where they invented the ‘psychedelic’ light show; to the extremely ambitious staging for albums such as The Wall and the Division Bell tours.
Pink Floyd were formed when the founding trio of bassist Roger Waters, drummer Nick Mason and keyboardist Rick Wright were augmented by original guitarist Syd Barrett. In 1968, guitarist David Gilmour joined the band shortly before Barrett’s departure.
Few bands in the history of rock have managed to carve out a career as rich and expansive as that of Pink Floyd. From their blues-based psychedelic roots, the members of the outfit have created some of modern music’s most totemic and inspirational albums, with ground-breaking live performances to match.
STAMP-BY-STAMP 
THE PIPER AT THE GATES OF DAWN (EMI Columbia, 1967)
Pink Floyd’s psychedelic debut is named after Chapter 7 of Kenneth Grahame’s classic children’s novel, The Wind in the Willows, one of frontman Syd Barrett’s favourite books. Photographer Vic Singh shot the cover image using a prism lens given to him by George Harrison some weeks earlier.
ATOM HEART MOTHER (EMI Harvest, 1970)
Pink Floyd’s fifth album provided them with their first UK Number One. It was also the first of their LPs not to feature the band’s name on the front of the sleeve, setting the tone for subsequent albums. Hipgnosis, co-founded by Storm Thorgerson and Aubrey Powell, designed the cover – the cow’s name is Lulubelle III.
THE DARK SIDE OF THE MOON (EMI Harvest, 1973)
With sales in excess of 40 million copies worldwide, The Dark Side Of The Moon remains in the Billboard chart in America over 40 years after its release, and has been entered into the Guinness Book of Records as the longest-charting album. Created by Hipgnosis, with graphics by George Hardie of NTA, the prism device is a classic.
WISH YOU WERE HERE (EMI Harvest, 1975)
With a theme of ‘absence’, the Hipgnosis design message was summarised by Storm Thorgerson as ‘not being present in a relationship or conversation’. The concept even extended to the album being shrink-wrapped in opaque black plastic which had to be slit or removed to access the music and images.
ANIMALS (EMI Harvest, 1977)
Animals was released as punk raged. While Johnny Rotten wore a T-shirt with the slogan ‘I Hate Pink Floyd’, Nick Mason busied himself producing The Damned’s Music for Pleasure. The photograph of Battersea Power Station features the now legendary floating inflatable pig designed by Roger Waters.
THE ENDLESS RIVER (Parlophone Warner, 2014)
Ostensibly a tribute to the late Richard Wright and described as a ‘headphones’ album by David Gilmour, The Endless River beat all records for volumes of online pre-orders. For the album cover, Aubrey Powell discovered 18-year old graphic designer Ahmed Emad Eldin’s enigmatic work, which was recreated by design company Stylorouge and photographer, Simon Fowler.
PINK FLOYD LIVE
While their studio work has always been important, Pink Floyd have been defined by their live performances. Their early shows in 1966 at London’s UFO Club married the use of pioneering liquid light effects that matched the psychedelic quality of the music itself.
By 1973, the band’s stage set was further expanded to mirror the dramatic sensibilities of the music: the tension that pervades The Dark Side of the Moon was reflected by lighting director Arthur Max’s innovative work, which included a 15-foot model plane flying over the audience, crashing on stage in sync with the explosion during the track On the Run. The In The Flesh Tour (aka The Animals Tour) of 1977 continued that pattern of spectacle through the use of inflatables, including the now famous pigs, and saw Pink Floyd make US stadiums their own.
Next came the Wall, Roger Water’s ambitious theatrical concept base on alienation which saw a physical wall built between the audience and the band.
Some 14 years later, spectacular stadium shows had become the norm, with Floyd underlining their status as pioneers during The Division Bell Tour, captured to great effect on the p.u.l.s.e DVD and beating all records in terms of gate receipts.
1st Class UFO Club, 1966. The UFO Club opened on Dec. 23, 1966. Pink Floyd were booked for the opening along with Soft Machine.
 
1st Class The Dark Side of the Moon Tour, 1973.  This show included the special effect of a plane crashing into the stage at the end of the song On the Run.
 
£1.52 The Wall Tour, 1981. Gerald Scarfe and Roger Waters designed a series of animations for the Wall Tour.  These animations were projected onto a 40-foot high wall of cardboard bricks which was gradually built between the band and audience.
 
£1.52 The Division Bell Tour, 1994. Over 5.3 million tickets were sold for this tour and it grossed approx. 100 million US dollars.
pink_floyd_stamps_animals
Stamps, eh? Wonder what Syd would have said?

Government pushes ahead with Royal Mail sell-off

postalQueen of the privatisers Margaret Thatcher thought the better of doing it, then New Labour’s Peter Mandelson tried but failed to do it but now it seems that it’s going to be third time unlucky as the coalition government moves to sell off the Royal Mail … a national asset that belongs to all of us:

Business Secretary Vince Cable told MPs yesterday: “Now the time has come for government to step back from Royal Mail, allow its management to focus wholeheartedly on growing the business and planning for the future. It’s now time for employees to hold a stake in the company and share in its success. This government will give Royal Mail the real commercial freedom it’s needed for a long time.”

Around 150,000 staff will be offered free shares when Royal Mail – one of the world’s oldest postal services – is sold off. It’s expected that the company will be worth snywhere between £2.5 – 4 billion when it is floated on the stock market later this year

Mr Cable said privatisation was necessary to ensure that universal service, which currently guarantees delivery to all parts of the country six days a week, can continue. Th government also says that the sale will give Royal Mail the access to private capital it needs to grow and remain competitive.

Royal Mail is currently refocusing it’s business priorities, targetting parcel delivery to cash in on the rapid growth of internet shopping as the number of posted letters falls due to the explosion of email. This change of emphasis saw Royal Mail more than double its profits last year after years of losses.

Ed Davey, minister for postal affairs, said the proposals ‘safeguard the future of both Royal Mail and the Post Office – two cornerstones of British life’, but there are many who are question whether the sell-off is either desirable or necessary – and industrial action looks likely.

Billy Hayes, general secretary of the Communication Workers Union, said: “The fact of the matter is the British public don’t want to see the Royal Mail privatised. Vince Cable is flogging this company to the very people he denounced at the Liberal party conference – the spivs, the speculators and those who just want to make a fast buck.” He went on: “Royal Mail is thriving in public ownership, increasing its profits, providing good quality services and decent jobs. We want it to remain that way. Privatisation would be a throwback to the tired old politics of the 1980s.”

Dave Ward, CWU’s deputy general secretary, said he expected members to be balloted before the end of September. “We will be balloting for strike action, we’ve already adopted that policy. I expect that policy to be ratified by the conference of the union at the end of July. That’s about our members’ terms and conditions, I want to make that clear. It’s about what we fear will happen with Royal Mail as a private operator – what we want is a legal binding agreement that protects their terms and conditions, their contracts of employment, their pensions, for the foreseeable future.

“I don’t think our members will be bought off by the free share issue,” he added. “I believe our members are too long in the tooth not to know the dangers of privatisation.”

Speaking after the announcement North and Leith Labour MP Mark Lazarowicz said: The Government has nationalised Royal Mail’s liabilities in the form of the pension fund in which there was a large shortfall and is now intent on privatising the profits. It argues that it is necessary to subject Royal Mail to commercial discipline and give it access to private sector capital but Royal Mail’s overall operating profits more than doubled over the last year from £152m in 2011-12 to £403m in 2013-13!

“A privatised Royal Mail might continue to operate the universal service provision of delivering 6 days a week to anywhere in the UK for the same price but for how long if its commercial rivals don’t have to? As with the East Coast Main Line, ideology seems to have won out over common sense – it will be private investors who benefit from its commercial success not the taxpayer or customers.”

POSTMAN PAT to join the picket line?
POSTMAN PAT to join the picket line?