Pen Pals and Red Pillar Boxes - 1950 - 1970

Can you remember the first time you posted a letter in Sibu? Did you ever help an older friend post a love letter? Did you drop it into the red post pillar box situated at Island Road Sibu? Did you have loads of pen pals when it was fashionable to have many pen pals ?



Most young students in the 60's looked for pen pals in the Movie Magazines and in the Dolphin Magazines. We also wrote to lots of pen pals who advertised in the local newspapers. We were actually encouraged to use this method to improve our English! Sometimes our expatriate and missionary teachers even introduced their own friends' children to correspond with us. And in order to make sure that we were not writing romantically our family would make us read our letters aloud . Sometimes teachers would also make us read our pen pals' letters aloud in class too.

I wrote to my cousin in Singapore and indeed improved my English. Today we are still emailing each other. I did have one pen pal from Mukah by the name of Winnie. She is some one big now. May be she has forgotten this pen pal from Sibu of the 60's. Life was very simple then. Having a pen pal was like opening a window to another part of the world.

I have often wondered when this significant red pillar boxes were removed from our social scene in Malaysia. Perhaps it was 1978 or early 1980's

I have found some pictures of those pillar boxes for you. Look at these and I hope nostalgia will take you back to those old days. There was one such pillar box right in front of the Heng Kwong Shop. I cannot remember when it was "removed".


Source : Wikipedia

On the brass plate we could read when the post men would come and collect the mail dropped into it. I remember they would come twice every day.

Secondly there is collection of pillar boxes or post boxes in Inkpen Post Box museum in Taunton Somerset England. Isn't it wonderful to see so many of them together? I get all nostalgic at once and remember how much the post office has done for the people throughout the ages. Lovely symbol isn't it? The pillar boxes below:



Source : Wikipedia

Several movies recently also remind me of the signficance of postmen in our lives:

This is a very good movie made in China featuring an excellent actor Liu Ye.




This is Kevin Costner's futuristic movie :




And this is a lovely post card from Malaysia - Bicycle used by Malaysian postman.




And many years ago many post men also walked their rounds to deliver letters.



And finally there is this song Please Mr. Postman by the magnificient Beatles ....





What memories these are!!!!




Extra Note :
Pillar Box
The Royal Mail red pillar box is one of the most familiar items of British street furniture. Introduced in 1853, only 13 years after the foundation of the penny post, it meant that posting a letter no longer involved making a trip to the nearest Post Office.

Its inventor, surprisingly, was none other than the multi-talented English novelist Anthony Trollope, who worked for the postal service in both Britain and Ireland for over 30 years. Pillar boxes always bear the monogram of the reigning monarch, and some of the most iconic examples of this particular icon are those that show the initials V.R., for Queen Victoria, making them over a century old. Though we may take pillar boxes for granted, a tour through their changing designs and an exploration of the part they play in the national postal collection system can be surprising and fascinating...

Source : http://www.icons.org.uk