Letter boxes are a bit like dogs – they tend, over time, to start looking like their owners. Some are squat and some are lean. Some are well-kept, clean and tidy, and others have gone to seed. Some have a sense of humour and some are serious. And many are unique, especially on islands.
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Letter boxes on an island tell much about their owners and their island influences and locations. The homemade letter boxes I have seen across Tasmania tell tales of an innovative people. They show their owners to be creative, individual and independent. They show a tendency to be subversive. They show that people care about their pets.
Across Tasmania, I have seen insular letter box designs as well as outwardly looking creations – creations that have taken the best of global styles and blended them into uniquely Tasmanian creations. Islanders are niche people and I have discovered that we have a world of little niches living at the end of our driveways, especially in rural areas.
There are so many expressions of freedom in Tasmania, expressed through such things as letter boxes, that if creativity could change the world (and I believe it can), then Tasmanians would lead the world.
On this island, once one starts to look, one sees so many creative, individually tailored and inspiring letter boxes. I some of them would inspire anyone living in an oppressed country to rise up, take joy in our freedom of expression and fight to bring that freedom to their own homeland.
A personalised letter box can be a profound philosophical statement. Wars could be started or ended by the level of freedom allowed in creating or not creating one’s own letter box.
Fortunately we are not oppressed in Tasmania. Letter boxes on this island come in all shapes and sizes. In the past few weeks I’ve seen ones made out of an old surfboard and an empty keg of beer. Old tin buckets work well here too. I’ve seen them being patriotic and looking like our flag; others have been covered in psychedelic flowers. Letter boxes say something important about us as island individuals.
In America, it was decreed long ago that all letter boxes must be within a certain range of size, dimension and materials. All letter box dimensions and designs must be approved by the department of the Postmaster General before it can be sold. There, in the land of the free, there is no freedom when it comes to letter boxes.
But not in Australia. Here, chaos reigns, without fuss. Creativity abounds. Dunny doors could be used for a letter box, or a crocodile skull. As long as there is a box at the end of suburban driveway or at the end of your 50km station dirt road driveway, Australian posties will deliver mail to it. It could be into the mouth of a shark skull on Flinders Island or into the clutches of a crab leg on King, it could be a container made out of abalone shells or a welded together rusty old car springs – whatever holds a letter will work.
I’ve seen letter boxes made out of an old microwave oven. I’ve seen one shaped like Ned Kelly’s helmet and others that look like posh birdhouses. I recently spotted one that was made out of a miniature John Deere tractor.
Letter boxes have long been an essential part of daily life Tasmania and we should value them, before they disappear.
Are letter boxes and posties soon to be added to the list of endangered species in Tasmania? As we move further into the digital and disposable communication era, will physical letter boxes vanish?
Some of us remember hearing the whine of a motorcycle as a postie delivered mail, and then running, heart racing, to check the box, hoping to receive a hand-written love letter from a distant one. Those days are vanishing fast. We should value posties and letter boxes while they still exist, before they go the way of the thylacine. Save the Letter box!
All we are saying is give posties a chance.
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There are certainly standard, generic boxes across Tasmania, especially in new suburban areas, but more and more I think people in country areas are branching out and creating ones that tell little stories about their owners and our island. Just this week I have seen letter boxes made out of a big black Mercury outboard motor, one carpentered and painted to look like a happy chicken, and another shaped like a potato with a farmer’s Akubra on top.
Letter boxes are like personalities, and each one deserves to be recognised. The best ones, I think, are the ones that have a sense of humour. I think this is good for the world to have a little chuckle and to acknowledge our still-existing old-fashioned hand-delivered in-mail system.
I wonder if posties have a little laugh when they deliver mail to a box shaped like a lighthouse or one made out of a tower of videotape-like cases. Would they sigh to themselves about leaving mail in a neglected, rusty old box leaning to one side, full of snails and wet junk mail? Letter boxes to me are poetic creations and inspire rhymes:
Some boxes have spiders, some have fleas
Some have ads and some have degrees
Some have rainbows and some have stars
Some have no numbers and know not where they are
Life is what happens to you while you are busy writing poems about letter boxes….
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Have you seen any unique letter boxes around Tasmania that tell a story about a personality or a place? What kind of letter box does one see in a mining town versus a fishing village? What letter box is there at the roadside for an owner of four fat pugs or an old woman who lives alone with 10 cats?
Would Bob Brown’s letter box be carved to look like a whale? Would David Walsh’s letter box look like genital parts … or dice?
Never forget that a small group of creative people can change the world. It has always been so.
Don Defenderfer is a native of San Francisco who once went on a holiday to Alaska where he met an Australian who told him to visit Tasmania. So he did, and while here he met a woman. That was 30 years ago. He was state coordinator for Landcare for many years, a job that allowed him to be inspired by not only the beauty of the Tasmanian landscape but by the many people that are trying to repair and renew it. He has a Masters Degree in Social Ecology and a Bachelor of Environmental Studies with a minor in writing. He has published three volumes of poetry, and his work has appeared in newspapers and periodicals, including The New York Times and The Australian.
