I was lucky enough to have a fortunate Christmas this year and received well chosen gifts from several family members and family friends. When the time came after Christmas for me to send nicely decorated cards to the kind people who had spent their time and money on me, I ventures out to my local post office where I endeavoured to purchase a book of second-class stamps. I probably shouldn’t admit that thanking kind gift givers became a second-class matter to me, as it most certainly not, but it was economical enough to buy second class stamps and it to be a second-class ordeal for my good fellows of the Royal Mail.
I was horrified, however, when I discovered that twelve stamps for a second-class ordeal cost £8 and who knows how much more if I was posting something first-class! Considering I only had eight cards to post and the stamps would most likely be taken and used by either of my parents later on in the year that averages to £1 per card, and they weighed practically nothing and were about A6 in size. It made me consider just sending text messages, but that felt too impersonal. What feels very personal, however, is paying the same price as a newspaper to send a piece of paper in a van across the country along with hundreds of others.
Another horror of postage pricing was just before Christmas when I went to send my friend in America a book for Christmas. Enclosed in the package I presented at the post office was a book, a letter and a post card, that is all. I ended up leaving the post office £9.10 poorer. Considering the book cost £5, I spent more on postage than the actual gift!
My only grievance is that, as the personal practice of writing letters is slowly becoming extinct, the Royal Mail should be encouraging the populous to send letters rather than discourage them with awfully high prices.
Annie Fogden
