LETTER BOXES
LETTER BOXES
What diversity ! What mysteries ! What struggles between conscience and idealism !
Recently I spent several mornings and an occasional afternoon delivering brochures to North Carlton letter boxes. This is not the first time I have undertaken this task and it has left me musing about the extraordinary range of local letter boxes and pondering the question of how much a letter box can tell you about the people who inhabit these North Carlton homes.
Some houses seem to have no letter box at all. Is this because the owners wish to avoid the inevitable junk mail that result from having a letter box or do they perhaps expect the postman to slide the mail under their front door?
Some letter boxes are elusive. They may be hidden in a mass of hedge, they may be sitting on the ground detached from their original moorings or occasionally they can be found lurking in some narrow slot near the side wall.
Some families have decided to retain the old letter slot in the wooden front door, where you need to open the front gate, [usually one that creaks loudly in the early morning stillness] then creep up the path hoping that you are not disturbing those asleep in the front room, push open the flap, slide in the brochure and hear it land with a gentle thump on the polished wooden floor that you have glimpsed through the slot.
There is a particular type of letter box, often at the most renovated and attractive houses, that is my special bugbear. It is that box with a metal flap over the slit in the box. It is one thing to push open a flap but this modern trap has a spring attached and it requires two strong hands to enable me to push open the flap, hold it open and then insert the brochure with the other hand, always with the fear that the spring will snap shut before my hand is withdrawn.
A major problem these days is deciding which families are willing to receive your brochure. It is from the local Church of All Nations, passing on the latest information about the work of its support agency and also giving people the opportunity to contribute to the Christmas appeal. One cannot assume that everyone wants to receive this particular brochure and whether we have a right to slip it into a letter box with a NO JUNK MAIL sign on it.
I ask myself whether this is junk mail and decide that it is definitely not. Junk mail is the sort of mail that is simply advertising local shops and services. No, this is important local information I tell myself.
But what about the NO JUNK MAIL sign that adds the startling warning
THE JUNK MAIL WATCHDOG IS WATCHING YOU
For some reason, when I see this sign I think of Conan Doyle’s The Hound of the Baskervilles. Yes, I do slip a brochure in the box but I do so hurriedly and with bated breath lest some great mastiff should suddenly emerge from the nearby bushes and spring upon me.
The next problem is the sign that requests
NO ADVERTISING MATERIAL.
Here I have to struggle with my pedantic conscience. Is this brochure advertising anything. Well yes it is… and yet is it really advertising or rather communication of local information ?
Again I take a liberal view and open the letter box.
There is however one notice, usually a yellow notice with red print, that requests AUSTRALIA POST ONLY. When I see this sign, no amount of linguistic gymnastics can soften the unequivocal nature of this demand. I pass on without leaving a brochure…. with one exception. I have a local friend whose letter box carries this sign and I know he is a generous supporter of our welfare work, so I take the risk here although not without a certain prick of conscience that I am ignoring his specific request.
Can I learn anything about the occupiers from the nature of their letter boxes and the signs attached? Probably not, but this twice annual early morning trek continues to entertain me as I face the baffling diversity of the location of the boxes and the nature of these warning signs. If only they knew what they were missing !
Mac Nicoll
What diversity ! What mysteries ! What struggles between conscience and idealism !
Recently I spent several mornings and an occasional afternoon delivering brochures to North Carlton letter boxes. This is not the first time I have undertaken this task and it has left me musing about the extraordinary range of local letter boxes and pondering the question of how much a letter box can tell you about the people who inhabit these North Carlton homes.
Some houses seem to have no letter box at all. Is this because the owners wish to avoid the inevitable junk mail that result from having a letter box or do they perhaps expect the postman to slide the mail under their front door?
Some letter boxes are elusive. They may be hidden in a mass of hedge, they may be sitting on the ground detached from their original moorings or occasionally they can be found lurking in some narrow slot near the side wall.
Some families have decided to retain the old letter slot in the wooden front door, where you need to open the front gate, [usually one that creaks loudly in the early morning stillness] then creep up the path hoping that you are not disturbing those asleep in the front room, push open the flap, slide in the brochure and hear it land with a gentle thump on the polished wooden floor that you have glimpsed through the slot.
There is a particular type of letter box, often at the most renovated and attractive houses, that is my special bugbear. It is that box with a metal flap over the slit in the box. It is one thing to push open a flap but this modern trap has a spring attached and it requires two strong hands to enable me to push open the flap, hold it open and then insert the brochure with the other hand, always with the fear that the spring will snap shut before my hand is withdrawn.
A major problem these days is deciding which families are willing to receive your brochure. It is from the local Church of All Nations, passing on the latest information about the work of its support agency and also giving people the opportunity to contribute to the Christmas appeal. One cannot assume that everyone wants to receive this particular brochure and whether we have a right to slip it into a letter box with a NO JUNK MAIL sign on it.
I ask myself whether this is junk mail and decide that it is definitely not. Junk mail is the sort of mail that is simply advertising local shops and services. No, this is important local information I tell myself.
But what about the NO JUNK MAIL sign that adds the startling warning
THE JUNK MAIL WATCHDOG IS WATCHING YOU
For some reason, when I see this sign I think of Conan Doyle’s The Hound of the Baskervilles. Yes, I do slip a brochure in the box but I do so hurriedly and with bated breath lest some great mastiff should suddenly emerge from the nearby bushes and spring upon me.
The next problem is the sign that requests
NO ADVERTISING MATERIAL.
Here I have to struggle with my pedantic conscience. Is this brochure advertising anything. Well yes it is… and yet is it really advertising or rather communication of local information ?
Again I take a liberal view and open the letter box.
There is however one notice, usually a yellow notice with red print, that requests AUSTRALIA POST ONLY. When I see this sign, no amount of linguistic gymnastics can soften the unequivocal nature of this demand. I pass on without leaving a brochure…. with one exception. I have a local friend whose letter box carries this sign and I know he is a generous supporter of our welfare work, so I take the risk here although not without a certain prick of conscience that I am ignoring his specific request.
Can I learn anything about the occupiers from the nature of their letter boxes and the signs attached? Probably not, but this twice annual early morning trek continues to entertain me as I face the baffling diversity of the location of the boxes and the nature of these warning signs. If only they knew what they were missing !
Mac Nicoll
posted by ledingham at 10:29 AM
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