Tuesday 17th September

I read an article today about a system of trust that exists in the Galapagos Islands, in which unstamped postcards are left in a barrel on the beach in the hope that a future visitor to the area will pick one or two out and deliver it when they return home from their holiday. The beach at Floreana became known as Post Office Bay, originally used by sailors for fellow seafarers to deliver correspondence at the next port of call. Nowadays of course it is a tourist attraction and nobody really expects to have his or her cards actually delivered. I wouldn’t be surprised if the majority of people address the cards to themselves just to see how long (if ever) it takes to see the card again.

This has come to my attention because of an article in The Guardian today, about how an artist called Simon Clark took it upon himself to deliver twenty two of the cards. It was a trip that took him around the UK by train and bicycle, meeting people and hearing their stories. The cynical aspect is that this is a ploy to prop up the sales of postcards, but what is wrong with that?

Whenever a friend or Facebook acquaintance (remember Facebook? It’s making an inexplicable comeback) goes on holiday, they post regular pictures of their location. They also post pictures of drinks and food but they would do that at home anyway. The idea of sending postcards probably doesn’t occur to them, and it occurred to me that I haven’t bought and sent postcards for a number of years. It will have been in 2010 when we spent a week in Whitby that I sent postcards, and haven’t bothered since although I do buy them from time to time. That’s what I find strange; everywhere you go you see postcards for sale. We make quite a few trips to London and almost every newsagent sells them, and of course there are the seaside towns (although the seaside ones always appear to be at least ten years out of date).

I am pretty sure that a system like the one in the Galapagos Islands could be introduced on a much bigger scale, especially in the current economic climate when more and more people are holidaying within the UK again. Every tourism office could have a post box inside, (it would have to be a different colour because, believe it or not, Royal Mail own the image rights on that particular colour of red in relation to mail delivery), and allow people to post unstamped cards in. For example, in November we are going to Brighton. I could go to the tourism office and have a look through the postcards to see if there was one for Nottingham, and if there was then I could bring it home and deliver it. It would be similar to that cardboard post box that we had in the corridor at school for Christmas cards.

Perhaps not just postcards, there’s the possibility that Christmas cards could be delivered in this way. You might have to send them in plenty of time, but this free postal system is just the sort of gesture of goodwill that we need.

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