The violent campaign behind the special crown symbol on Scottish post boxes
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The Postie Notes by Pete Malone
I feel a bit of a fraud writing a Postie Notes column this month as bank holidays mean I have only worked a few shifts since my last effort.
The main bank holiday was the coronation and, whether you are a monarchist or republican, it was an occasion of great pomp and ceremony.
The change of monarch does not ring many changes in the world of the postie but two you might have noticed.
The first is that the newest 50p coin has the head of King Charles on the obverse. As in previous years the new coinage will be drip fed into the system and all the coins featuring Queen Elizabeth II will eventually be recalled along with bank notes, although new notes featuring the King won’t be put into circulation until the middle of 2024.
I used pre-decimal currency and I remember coins which featured Queen Victoria, although these were mostly pennies, worn thin, but still good enough to buy a penny chew.
The second change is that is that the latest stamps feature the head of the new king. I haven’t yet delivered anything with the newly crowned head on it, but perhaps if I had worked a few more shifts I might have done.
As the post is the “Royal Mail” it has always had a close connection to the reigning monarch.
One of the most obvious signs is on pillar boxes. Since the time of Queen Victoria, post boxes have carried a royal cypher. Although the cypher for Charles has been unveiled, it is not clear how or when it will be introduced.
The cypher for the late queen caused controversy as she was the first of that name to rule in Scotland but the second in England. The use of the “E II R” cypher on Scottish boxes in 1952 met with significant opposition.
Wendy Wood, the prominent Scottish patriot and an early supporter of the National Party of Scotland, wrote to Scotland’s police chief urging him to arrest the Postmaster General for his action in “erecting letter boxes bearing the historical inaccuracy in Scotland E.R. II”. Ms Wood added that it “is an incitement to disorder and breach of the peace”.
The campaign against the cypher began in Edinburgh with boxes being covered in tar and the cypher damaged with a hammer. The repair cost £66 or £2,500 in today’s money. The campaign spread through the country, escalating from graffiti on boxes to arson attacks and even explosive devices being left inside some boxes. In late 1953 the Government backed down and Scottish boxes show a special Scottish crown cypher not found in the rest of the UK.
The picture above shows the box at Langdale, Strathnaver. It is a wall box built in 1956, according to the date inside, and would have been one of the first with the new Scottish cypher. We still use the original key to open it and collect mail for onward posting.
It’s not unusual to find a postcard mailed by cyclists making the long trip from Land’s End to John O’Groats.
I hope that when they change the cypher they leave the wall box intact and don’t replace it with one of the newer boxes which look like a large, red tin can on a leg.
I’d like to think that in another 75 years there will still be a postie looking inside, seeing the 1956 date and writing an article for the local paper about it.
Pete Malone is a postman based in Bettyhill.
