With no junk mail to fill them up and very little snail mail being sent, letterboxes are becoming a dying breed. Photo: Michele Tydd.
Things are disappearing around the house lately at a rapid rate.
The home phone, gone! The DVD player, gone! The Yellow Pages phone book – so emaciated it may as well be gone, and yesterday came signs the letterbox is on death row thanks to electronic mail.
When I opened the letterbox lid, all I could see was a tiny brown spider joyfully spinning its web like a hiker setting up camp.
When it saw eyes peering from above, its eight legs scuttled into a dusty corner where it hoped for the best.
Sadly, insects and pamphlets are all I seem to find there these days.
At least when my son lived at home there was the occasional speeding fine to justify its upkeep.
It’s sad about the letterbox because it’s been around for nearly 200 years. The British Post Office first encouraged people to install letterboxes in 1849.
For most people in the UK a domestic letterbox was a slit in the door, which is still widely used today.
Before then people had to hoof it to the post office to collect mail and parcels.
The domestic letterbox soon spread around the world as an essential link in the communications chain.
For an inanimate object, it has brought us a load of joy and excitement beyond the usual birthday and Christmas cards.
Before Facebook, Gmail, and WhatsApp it was the receptacle for letters from friends, overseas relatives, and pen pals, as well for colourful postcards from exotic parts of the world — and if you were lucky, a copy of your successful HSC results. They went online in 1999.
In most UK homes, mail would once fall through a slot in the front door. Photo: Penny Griffith.
But it wasn’t all fun and games because letterboxes sometimes held heartbreaking news.
Think world wars, the Vietnam War and the Korean War when the worst news possible for families at home often arrived in the letterbox.
Dear John letters that were used to announce a relationship break-up can also be lumped in with the historic misery category.
Letterboxes themselves have suffered some nasty acts over the years.
In the 60s and 70s when fireworks were legal, it was not unusual for some of the mischievous kids in the street to get their laughs out of blowing up a neighbour’s letterbox with a bunger.
In a random act of skulduggery, I recently found a dog poo wrapped in a serviette in my letterbox, probably the work of a disgruntled neighbour who mistakenly suspected I didn’t pick up my dog’s droppings.
And let’s not forget the letterbox contribution to the performing arts. The US band The Marvelettes had a number-one hit song in 1961 with Please Mr Postman about a lovesick girl feverishly waiting for a letter from her boyfriend.
But the wrecking ball officially fell in 2023 with an Australian Government discussion paper that clearly signalled trouble brewing due to disruptive technology.
Letter volumes, it says, have declined 66 per cent since they peaked in 2007-2008.
“The use of letter services will continue to decline, driven by customer migration to increasingly affordable and sophisticated digital alternatives.”
Proud letterboxes throughout the country understandably shook on their hinges and rightly so because the following year, letter deliveries were cut to every second day.
Letterboxes are officially in semi-retirement, so it’s time now to start preparing for the day it will become a quaint flower box or, better still, a permanent home for a sweet little brown spider.
