121 Direct Mail believes the Royal Mail press release issued last year regarding the dropping of counties from postal addresses seems to have tugged at our British patriotism again, as millions of Christmas Cards were sent to customers, friends and relatives across the country.

Royal Mail announced it will start to remove more than 100 obsolete postal county names from its database in 2013 – with every county mothballed by 2016.The Royal Mail is removing county names from the official Postcode Address File that is used by thousands of private companies and public bodies, because they are surplus to requirements saying that the postal service now only needs a house number, street name and post code to be able to deliver its mail correctly.

So, on that recommendation if a letter enclosing a large cheque was being sent to you, which address format would you prefer the sender to use to make sure it arrived safely????

Charter House
Latham Close
SK6 2SD

OR

121 Direct Mail
Charter House
Latham Close
Bredbury
Stockport
Cheshire
SK6 2SD

For many people in December, Christmas cards are a personal message from me to you and writing the full postal address on a card subconsciously gives you confidence that your card and seasonal message of goodwill will reach its desired recipient.

Since this announcement, many readers’ letters have been received and printed by local newspapers and regional publications frowning upon the loss of Britain’s patriotic identity. One reader of Cheshire Life states “Creating the future by destroying the past means we risk losing our cultural heritage, national identity and our proud traditions. The omission of county names, towns and villages in favour of a dependency on the accuracy of mere postcodes, with a line of house addresses, is so obviously flawed.”

The Yorkshire press and its always opinionated readers were inundated with comments regarding this proposal….
Graham Taylor, former North Yorkshire policeman and vicar turned bestselling novelist “I always write Yorkshire in big capital letters on an address. I’m very proud of where I live. I even, if I remember, put North Riding on. I think breaking up the Ridings was a terrible thing. “Place names are an important part of our identity. I live in Yorkshire – and more people live in Yorkshire than live in Scotland and Wales and Northern Ireland.

“England is its shires!” protested author Geoff Dyer.

“I don’t feel British, I feel English and Yorkshire,” added novelist Margaret Drabble, who went to school in York.

The writer and intellectual Howard Jacobson really got to the heart of the matter. “Being born in Lancashire rather than Yorkshire was more than an accident of geography,” he wrote. “It defined our souls.”

Bradford-born Look North presenter Harry Gration, who now lives in York says “I think dropping county names in addresses would just be a further way of eroding our communities. We all live in this place called England – are we going to start calling it UK 22, or Europe Zone 10 or something? That is fine for computers, but people prefer to make it clear that they were born in York and live in the heart of Yorkshire. We don’t live in a postcode.”

Gillian Cruddas, head of York tourism body says “People living in Yorkshire feel very strongly about where they come from. The name of the county is all part and parcel of who we are, and our perception of the place we come from.”

But the real long term question we need to ask is:
How long will it be before we all just become a personal barcode in the postal system? Some people are already putting barcodes on business cards so that phones can photograph them and instantly transfer the contact details onto their system.

The Royal Mail are using an automated barcode reader system already, so why not just issue everyone with some self addressed barcode stickers, have you own barcode created on a mobile phone app that you can scan in at shops so they can mailshot you. It’s only a variation of “Chip & Pin” that we are all happily using these days.

Britain is a proud island and the counties that make up its parts have their own identities, accents, traditions, foods and landscape. One journalist wrote I was born and raised in Herefordshire, a beautifully rural and forgotten county on the edge of Wales. The very name brings back heady childhood memories of sun-filled summer afternoons exploring the old castle mound behind our house, or wading through clear, fast-flowing brooks, searching through the river weed for sticklebacks, minnows and other tiny fish.

Its part of our international heritage, its our souls identity, who would ever want to reply to someone that strikes up a conversation and asks where you are from… and you reply “SK6” How scarey and futuristic would that be?

An online forum post said that as far as they were concerned they understood it made no difference to Royal Mail whether the county was shown in an address, just as long as the postcode was included as well. Also as it wasn’t going to become a criminal offence to include your county - So letter writers of Britain should continue to state where they reside in full and with pride.