Going Postal

Postal Museum

A couple of weeks ago I visited a museum that had been recommended by a friend with another
friend, the museum was the Postal Museum (hence the heading) the other friend is now back in Japan!


The  friend (who I visited with - keep up) was a guy  I used to chat with during my last years’ participation in CityLit London Villages Walks course.

He (and his wife) have a place right in town but also a further residence in Suffolk (Woodbridge) where they spend 3 nights each week – the couple do not have children and may move full time to Suffolk when his wife stops working.

The chap is semi-retired and spends some of his time on ‘investments’ his wife works quite hard in executive rewards/remuneration sector, although slightly younger than  I he’s a roughly similar vintage but has a very different background being from Northern Ireland (was brought up a staunch Protestant, now less concerned with this) he is now quite interested in his Scottish roots (genealogy again).

Nice train ride.

The bigger picture 

 Our meetup a visit to the Postal Museum  offered a fascinating view/perspective into British history (and also has a nice little train ride on track that was used for mail distribution to London train termini). Such a reminder of the dramatic changes in labour and employment in our own lifetimes
(and also sad in some ways too).

 The train track was used in Hudson Hawk (Bruce Willis) film as a stand in for an Italian location.

A telegram would be delivered like this 

The Museum is in the area behind ITN's HQ in Grays Inn Road (where I worked for a while) .
Like so much of London much development is now taking place there, new shops and housing

 – seems odd to think (new) ITN building now more than 25 years old and very well established!

ITN is housed in this building

Art and family in London

I hear that Bonnard exhibition at Tate is was worth a visit  – must get over there but with so many great exhibitions to see in the nation’s capital –it's inevitable that occasional miss something or get caught in the inevitable crowds at end of run.


 Now in second half of the ‘100 paintings course’ (CityLit) and we (thankfully) have got past work that focused very heavily on Saints, this week we were looking at French work and Velasquez too - quite taken with Claude, less so with Nicolas Poussin (a little too painterly for me) and I generally preferred earlier Velazquez to his later work .

I think that Christ in the House of Martha and Mary owes much to the 'Dutch Golden Age' and that's no bad thing!

A biblical message made contemporary 

Claude apparently a big influence on Turner, seems on donating works to National he required Claude paintings to be hung by his own.

Claude's influence on Turner is clear 

First visit to National Café

Diane's main course was the most photogenic 

After the lesson met up with Debbie, my cousin Andrew and his fiend Diane – very nice meal in the café, I’d not seen Andrew for some time, he lives in Wells, Somerset and is really good company – I got pictures of the food but forgot to get someone to take a ‘group shot’.

My main

Debbie and Andrew made the same choice