Postcard delivered after 40 years

It was full of details about a holiday in the sun.Only problem was the the news was 40 years old.

Jennifer Palliser with the postcard delivered 40 yrs late Photo: Liverpool Post and Echo

A postcard bringing holiday news to a couple in Almondbury has just been delivered - 40 years after it was posted.

Couple David and Jennifer Palliser were dumbfounded to find the postcard - bearing a 5d stamp and addressed to a previous occupant of their house - among the bills landing on the doormat.

And it came amid mounting fears that postal workers are set to go on national strike.

The Communication Workers Union revealed on Thursday that members backed a nationwide walkout by 3-1 in protest at the "imposition" of changes to working practices as well as cuts in their pay and job losses.

The postcard was sent by someone called Heather to a Mr and Mrs Sedgwick at 27 Broadgate Crescent.

The postmark shows it was posted in June or July, 1969, in Shakespeare's birthplace of Stratford on Avon.

Heather talks about enjoying the sunshine, watching plays and seeing a match at Wimbledon's Centre Court.

Heather comments on having seats behind US tennis player Charlie Pasarell - who that summer famously defeated Pancho Gonzalez in the longest match in Wimbledon history at 5hrs 14mins.

The Wimbledon men's singles title was eventually won by Australian Rod Laver while Britain's Ann Jones took the women's title.

The postcard, featuring a colour picture of Anna Hathaway's Cottage, also bears a stamp marking the Garrick Theatre Jubilee 1769-1969. Famous Shakespearean actor David Garrick built the first theatre in Stratford in 1769.

Mrs Palliser said: "I saw the postcard lying on the mat with the other post and my first thought was - who's sent us a postcard?"

"I read the name and thought it must have come to the wrong house.

"Then I saw it had a 5d stamp and realised it was properly addressed but was 40 years old.

"The postcard looks to be in good condition, considering its age.""

Mrs Palliser said a Mr and Mrs Sedgwick had lived at the address - but they left some years before the Pallisers moved in during 1986 and the house had at least two other occupants in between.

Mr Palliser said: "We are asking around some of the neighbours who may know what became of the Sedgwicks or their relatives.

"If possible, we'd like to make sure the postcard gets to its rightful recipients."

A spokesman for Royal Mail said: "Without seeing the item, it's difficult to speculate as to what may have happened, but it's extremely unlikely that it's been in our system all that time as we regularly check all our sorting machines and offices.

"It could be that it has only recently been re-posted by a member of the public."

Other events from the summer of 1969 include:

June 1 - John Lennon and Yoko Ono protest against war by staging a "bed-in" in Montreal, Canada

June -20 Georges Pompidou is elected President of France

June 24 - The UK and Rhodesia sever diplomatic ties

July 8 - The US maks its first troop withdrawals from Vietnam

July 20 - Neil Armstrong becomes the first man to walk on the Moon

March 3, 1919: U.S. Starts International Airmail Service

By Randy Alfred 03.03.09

On March 3, 1919, William Boeing (right) and pilot Eddie Hubbard flew the first letters for U.S. international airmail delivery in this Boeing Model C.
Photo: Boeing

1919: The United States starts international airmail delivery by flying 60 letters from Vancouver, British Columbia to Seattle. In the cockpit: Bill Boeing.

In one sense, the earliest airmail was flown on balloons. The very first balloon flight in the United States is said to have carried a letter from tech-positive President George Washington to the owner of whatever property the balloon might land on.

Italy began experimenting with heavier-than-air planes carrying airmail in 1908 and issued air mail postage officially in May 1917. In the meantime, in 1911 the British Indian Empire flew 6,500 letters and cards the underwhelming distance of 6 miles.

Regular international airmail service in Europe took off in 1918, with a regular London-Paris link connecting World War I allies Britain and France, and a Vienna-Kiev route serving Austria and Russia.

Back in the U.S.A., the took over airmail delivery from the U.S. Army Air Service (forerunner of the Army Air Corps and eventually the U.S. Air Force) in August 1918. The first Post Office pilots were paid $4,000 a year (about $49,000 in today's money).

The following March 3, pilot Eddie Hubbard and airplane-builder Bill Boeing carried 60 letters over the border from Vancouver to Seattle in a Boeing Model C. Hubbard was soon piloting a Boeing B-1 flying boat for regular delivery between Seattle and Victoria, British Columbia. He eventually put in 350,000 miles flying that route for eight years.

Flying was dangerous. Assistant Postmaster General Otto Praeger wasn't a pilot, but insisted his pilots stick to the schedule. More than half the first 40 postal pilots died in air crashes, mostly because of bad weather.

When pilots Leon Smith and and Ham Lee refused direct orders from Praeger to take off during some nasty weather in July 1919, both were fired. All the other pilots went out on strike.

After three days of talks, new rules specified that postal field managers had to fly a brief inspection flight to check the weather. If they didn't know how to pilot a plane, they had to sit in the mailbox in front of the pilot. The managers learned how to be reasonable about balancing the weather and the schedule.

Postal planes started flying transcontinental relays in 1920. Pilots flew by day, using visible landmarks to guide them. They'd land at dusk and transfer their bags of mail to overnight trains. The following morning, the mail was re-transferred back to another plane for another day's worth of flight. The system cut transcontinental mail-delivery time from 4½ days by rail to 33 hours by the air-and-rail relay.

Night flights became practical in 1924, with a transcontinental airway of rotating beacon lights and well-illuminated emergency airstrips. Airmail cost 8 cents (about a buck in today's cash) to travel one of the three zones, or 24 cents for a cross-country trip.

Source: Centennial of Flight Commission