The Post Office and Postal Families of Langham

by Ann Grimmer The fi rst mention of a Langham ‘post o ffi ce’ was in 1844 when the Stamford Mercury of 9 th February noted that ‘In consequence of the application of the Rev   Gustavus Burnaby, the Postmaster General has authorised an o ffi cial post to be established from Oakham to Barleythorpe, Langham, Cold Overton and Somerby, with o ffi ces for the reception of le tt ers at Langham, Cold Overton and Somerby. The measure will be carried into e ff ect as soon as the necessary preparations are completed.’ The Rev Gustavus Andrew Burnaby of Somerby Hall was a member of a local, wealthy, landed Leicestershire family and patron of the livings of Somerby and Burrough on the Hill. At the time of this article, he was Chaplain to the Duke of Cambridge, later becoming the vicar of Somerby until his death in 1872. Before the advent of post boys or mail coaches, few people in Rutland had the need, education or means to correspond with other folk far away, though some could a ff ord to send a servant or employ a messenger. Le tt ers could also be sent with local carriers who had transported goods by cart, wagon or packhorse since the 1400s along routes which included most market towns. The delivery of le tt ers, or small packets, was a pro fi table side-line and they would be collected from, or delivered to, a named local hostelry; hence le tt ers were addressed not to a house but to an inn, usually in a market town, with ‘To John Brown Esq at the sign of the Swan Inn’ a typical address. Merchants trading with the continent already had a reliable transfer of le tt ers called the ‘Strangers’ Post’ in London and the ‘Merchant Adventurers’ Post’ on the continent, whereby trusted bearers travelled the same sixty mile route from London to the Channel ports using the same inns as staging posts. The prosperous merchants of the wool towns in Norfolk had even funded their own connecting link to London by taxing local innkeepers, who were also required to provide horses for the collection of mail to and from the City of London. Even before these postal links, kings and their courts had used the ‘King’s Posts’ to receive and deliver orders from far away as quickly as possible. The dispatches were carried in relays by ‘post riders’ galloping from one set of stables or ‘post stations’ to another roughly twelve miles away and changing to a fresh horse for the next twelve miles at each ‘post station’. Around 1512, Henry VIII set up a more permanent system by appointing Sir Brian Tuke as ‘Master of the Post’ whose job it was to maintain the relays of horses and riders on the routes from London to Edinburgh, Holyhead, Falmouth, Dover and Dublin.

Each postmaster was required to have at least two fresh horses (as sometimes a guide was necessary) available for the next stage, and his own ‘post boy’ ready and waiting to leave on hearing the sound of the approaching post horn. The postmaster removed the le tt ers for his area and handed the remainder to the new post boy to continue the next stage of the journey as quickly as possible. The post boys transported the mail in bags, on horseback. The roads were in such poor condition it was hard going on horses and riders so that they travelled at barely four miles an hour and were easy prey for robbers. As time went on, an increasing number of private le tt ers were being carried and when a public postal system was set up in 1635 the country became crisscrossed by a system of crossroads connecting two post roads. ‘By-posts’ ran between a post road and a town some distance from it, and ‘way-le tt ers’ went between two towns on the same post road.

In 1786 John Palmer, originally a theatrical entrepreneur, became Surveyor and Comptroller General of the Post and it was his idea that a coach and horses could transport the mail faster than the mounted post boy system. A ft er a trial mail coach run on 2 nd August 1794 between London and Bristol, when the usual journey time of about thirty-eight hours was reduced to sixteen hours, his ideas were adopted. The horses were changed every ten to fift een miles, using the same inns as the post stages. From 1783, the Post O ffi ce had been using John Besant’s patented mail coach design which allowed the transport of passengers as well as mail: four sat inside and three outside, thus providing extra revenue. Mail coach travel may have been faster than the stagecoach travel of the time, but it would have been cold and very uncomfortable, with brief stops only to change the horses and mail bags. The stagecoaches, however, had meal stops and passengers could opt to stay overnight at the inn and catch another coach the next day.

The Edinburgh and London Royal Mail, 1838. John Frederick Herring

Rutland played a not an unimportant part in this network of routes, with Oakham and Langham as points of reference. A map of ‘The Great Roads and Principle Cross Roads’ dated 1756 shows that Langham must have been on the post road from London to Hull via Melton Mowbray, No tt ingham, Mans fi eld, She ffi eld and Doncaster, with an extension from Mans fi eld to join the York to Carlisle post road at Richmond. Oakham was at the end of an extension of the London to St Neots post road, the extensions, at that time, not yet having a six-day a week service.

SWAN HOTEL COACH – OFFICE. NEW ROYAL MAIL ESTABLISHMENT.

Hart most respectfully announces to the public, a NEW  ROYAL MAIL  COACH will leave his office every morning at eight o’clock, through Coventry, Nuneaton, Hinkley, LEICESTER, Melton, and Oakham, to STAMFORD, from whence Mails and Post Coaches proceed to Wisbech, Lynn, Norwich, Yarmouth, &.: Also to all parts of Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire, Norfolk, and Suffolk. – The Mail returns every morning from Stamford the same route, and arrives at the Swan Hotel, Birmingham, at a quarter past five o’clock. Aris’s Birmingham Gazette 30th May 1825 Stamford and Grantham were, of course, on the long established Great North post road from London to York and Edinburgh. By 1835, a map of Royal Mail Coach Routes in England and Wales shows that Langham was also on a well - established route from London to Leeds via St Albans, Northampton, Leicester, No tt ingham, Chester fi eld, She ffi eld, Halifax and Wake fi eld. There were also connections from Oakham to post roads going east and west. There were on-going problems for travellers, principally the bad state of the roads, the danger of being held up by robbers and the likelihood of accidents. Arthur Young, a traveller in the 1700s , noted the bad road conditions on a journey from London to Carlisle, describing thus the following sections towards Rutland and beyond:-

To: Bedford; turnpike, a vile, narrow cut up lane To: Kimboulton; (sic) very shabby To: Grimsthorpe; a cross-road; very bad; at one part of it over a common, with roads pointing nine ways at once, and no direction post. To: Colsterworth; mostly execrably vile; a narrow causeway, cut into ruts, that threaten to swallow us up. To: Wakefield; indifferent; through the town of Wakefield so bad that it ought to be indicted.

J.

Reports in the local papers recorded frequent mail coach accidents and robberies. Robbing a mail coach could result in the death penalty as happened to John Bowland who was sentenced to hang at the Oakham Assize in July 1769. Accidents were common, some fatal. The death of mail coach driver John  Cutler was reported in the Stamford Mercury on 15 th July 1791 – ‘he was shook o ff about a mile from Leicester, by the coach going against the side of a bank, by which he was so much hurt that he expired on Tuesday in the Leicester In fi rmary, leaving a large family’. Stamford July 13. John Bowland, some time since robbed the North Mail, was tryed at Oakham in the county of Rutland, and found guilty, and sentenced to be hanged Th ursday the 20th instant. It was said by some persons he would not found guilty, as the driver of the Mail was so terri fi ed on his producing a Pistol, that he could not swear to the identity of his person ; but as he had formerly lived in these parts, was seen and known at Stamford the very evening in which the Mail was robbed, it was generally believed that this Bowland was the person who robbed it, and the Masters of the Post - O ffi ce, had procured such variety of evidence to prove him to be guilty of the fact, that he had no probability of escaping. It is supposed in the course of this prosecution, the O ffi ce has expended £1500. We hear from Lincoln, that the Soldier, who belonged to Light Horse, and committed a robbery near this place, is found guilty of the same. Rutland & Stamford Mercury 17th July 1769 The Stamford Mercury reported on the 13 th December 1813 that on the previous Monday the fog had been very thick for twenty miles around London, delaying coaches so badly that the Glasgow mail that should have reached Stamford by 8.00 a.m., did not arrive until 2.00 p.m., and the York and Edinburgh coaches not until 4.00 p.m. Many coaches were overturned during these journeys. On one journey, the York mail overturned twice, the guard and passengers then having to walk to keep it on the road. Another fatal accident was reported on the 25 th August 1826 - the Union Leeds mail coach le ft Alconbury Hill to travel northwards when a boy opened a fi eld gate and drove out a herd of pigs just as the coach was passing. The frightened horses swerved and overturned the coach onto a heap of gravel on the roadside. The passengers escaped without serious injury apart from ‘one young gentleman, in a very delicate state of health, who was going to Harrogate for the bene fi t of the waters, had his nervous system so greatly a ff ected by the danger which he apprehended, that he eventually died from the shock.’ During May 1844, the auxiliary mail coach travelling between No tt ingham and Stamford su ff ered two accidents within a week, both times because a wheel came o ff .

One incident occurred by Horn Lane toll bar (near Exton) when the mailbags had to continue their journey by gig to Stamford. The other happened near Bingham, No tt s. In both instances the passengers and coachman were fl ung into the road but luckily escaped serious injury. Local papers o ft en gave helpful details of hostelries in Rutland and elsewhere. In 1724, with stabling for one hundred horses, the George Inn, Oakham must have been a very busy collecting/dropping o ff place for dozens of carriers and travellers.

THIS is to give Notice, Th at the George Inn in Oakham in the County of Rutland, being an accustomed Inn for Carriers, with good Stabling for 100 Horses, and other good Conveniences, and some Goods very necessary for the said Inn, to be Lett and Enter upon immediately. Enquire at the said Inn, or of Mr John Gamble of Seargrave in Leicestershire, or of Mr Mason of Whitsundine in the said County of Rutland, and be farther informed. Rutland & Stamford Mercury 7th May 1724 The Stamford Mercury of 23rd January 1729 carried the notice advertising the fact that ‘the Oundle Carrier’ leaves the Bell Inn, Wood Street, London every Wednesday and Saturday morning for the carriage of goods and passengers to Oundle, Uppingham, Oakham, Stamford, Grantham, Newark and all places adjacent at reasonable rates’ with the return journey on Thursday, Saturday and Monday. Another carrier advertised its winter service timetable on 27th November 1783 starting from the George and Blue Boar Inn, Holborn, London on 1st December. The coach carrying passengers and parcels would set out every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 9.00 a.m., arriving in Uppingham and Oakham the next day, with the return journey leaving the Crown, Oakham at 3.00 p.m. the following day. The coach would call to take in and deliver mail/parcels at the White Hart, Ke tt on, the White Horse, Morco tt and the Falcon at Uppingham. The passenger fare cost £1.4s but half price if you sat outside. Uppingham was established as a ‘post town’ (meaning a town through which the mail was routed) by 1716 and Oakham by 1792. By 1809 the Crown Hotel in Oakham was also a busy place on carrier and mail coach routes. The Stamford Mercury of 24th March 1809 advertised an auction sale at the Crown Hotel by R Glenham of ‘Nine very valuable well- seasoned Machine Horses in high condition, just taken from the Leeds mail coach and two sets of coach harness, the property of Mr Banton.’ One wonders if the ‘Machine’ in the nine horses was worn out from galloping back and forth to Leeds, hence they were now for sale.

Innkeepers became the fi rst postmasters since they were responsible for providing the post boys, their horses and stabling. As mail coaches improved and carried more mail, it was felt that inns were not suitable places for the security of the mail bags so, by 1836, post o ffi ces began to be established in shops such as grocers, booksellers, chemists or stationers, and their proprietors became post masters as well as shop keepers. Langham fi rst had only receiving places for mail rather than a post o ffi ce. These appear to have been in the village grocery shops with the post o ffi ce evolving gradually as more postal services were o ff ered, starting with the sale of postage stamps. The main local town had a postmaster and the villages sub postmasters. The demise of the Royal Mail coaches began with the coming of the railways. The fi rst rail delivery between Liverpool and Manchester was on 11 th   November 1830. Deliveries by coach ceased from London to Norwich during 1846. Regional mail coaches were gradually replaced by rail services during the 1850s; Oakham’s station and rail services opened on 1 st May 1848.

Before 1840 the cost of sending a le tt er was charged by the distance it was to travel and the number of the pages wri tt en, with the charge, or postage, paid by the le tt er’s recipient; so to keep costs down ‘cross writing’ was practised to save on the number of sheets used. The page was wri tt en on, then turned at right angles, with writing continuing over the previous text (see above); the page was then folded up, sealed with coloured wax and marked with the writer’s signet ring or handheld marker.

The system of charges was o ft en abused, with some areas charging more than others and o ft en adding extra for delivery. From 1652, all le tt ers sent by Members of Parliament, the Commons and the Lords were ‘franked’ and could be sent for free; this system became known as ‘franking’ and was also open to much abuse by MPs. In 1837 Rowland Hill devised a method of prepayment for postage with a uniform cost for all le tt ers and, to counteract any abuse, a stamp was introduced to show the prepayment had been made. This eventually led to the Penny Black stamp, the fi rst adhesive stamp. Free franking was ended, postage rates reduced to 1d regardless of the distance but dependent upon the weight, with an envelope now coming into use. In 1839 the number of chargeable le tt ers was approximately seventy-six million but a ft er the introduction of the Penny Black stamp and post o ffi ces becoming established in rural locations, this number had increased to approximately three hundred and fift y million. In June 1866, the Stamford Mercury noted that there was now a post office with a pillar-box to every 326 inhabited houses. The Langham church warden’s account books show several instances of postage paid for le tt ers received or sent on church business, before the fi rst post o ffi ce arrived in the village in 1844.

18 2 3 2 9 t h A p r i l p o s t a g e o f a l e tt e r 3 d 18 2 7 – May paid postage of Mr Cole’s licence 18 2 9 29th May postage of a letter from Mr Hopkins 4d 18 3 6 6th August paid postage of a letter from Stamford 4d 18 42 6th December paid for letters by post 2d 18 43 17th March postage on letters 4d 18 44 10th January paid postage on two letters 2d There are no similar entries during the next month of February 1844 a ft er the fi rst post o ffi ce opened for business in Langham and was issued with a circular hand stamp to show that postage had been paid. Before the establishment of Langham’s fi rst postmaster, Pigot and Co.’s Trade Directory of 1836 just tells us that ‘Le tt ers arrive from and are forwarded to Oakham by carrier’. The fi rst Rutland villages to acquire sub-postmasters/post o ffi ces appear to have been Langham, (issued with its own Undated Circular Hand Stamp) Somerby and Co tt esmore in 1844, Empingham a year later in 1845, Whissendine in 1846, Exton in 1851, Burley In 1876 and Ashwell in 1891.

We can identify Langham postmasters and postmistresses from 1844 onwards and these are listed at the end. The fi rst known positive position of Langham’s post o ffi ce was at 33 Church Street where the Bown family lived, and Robert and Mary Ann Bown ran this o ffi ce from 1868 to 1894. A small window still exists on the right-hand side of the front door and from which, reputedly, the post o ffi ce business was conducted. Inside, beneath the window is the door to a safe, within the wall, where the post o ffi ce cash was kept. The Bown family were initially millers, graziers and bakers, later taking on the post o ffi ce duties as well, with the mail deliveries fitt ing in nicely with a bread-round to nearby villages. Sub-postmasters only earned commission on the transactions and services they provided so frequently had another occupation and ran the post o ffi ce as a side line.

LANGHAM. POSTAL. – It will, no doubt, be interesting to the residents of Langham to know that the Postmaster General has given notice that on and from 2nd June, Money Order, Postal Order, Savings Bank, Stock Investment, Life Assurance, and Annuity business will be carried on at the Sub Post o ffi ce of this village. Grantham Journal 31st May 1890 Post o ffi ce services were gradually extended and on 16 th April 1889 Langham Post O ffi ce also became a Telegraph O ffi ce with its own three-le tt er code of LHQ. Coincidently, the Bown’s daughter Sarah Elizabeth was married on 17 th  April 1889, the day a ft er it became a telegraph o ffi ce, to Langham widower William J Mantle. The couple le ft by train for their honeymoon in Redcar, Yorkshire and were able to send a telegram from there at 6.32 p.m. to Sarah’s parents at Langham post o ffi ce to tell of their safe arrival and to remind them to give some wedding cake to local friend Mrs Feveryear. Their telegram was received at Langham at 7.19 p.m . and became the very fi rst telegram ever received in Langham.

The first telegram received in Langham 17th April 1889

A new and purpose built post o ffi ce had been erected in Oakham in 1893 and on 11 th November 1893 the Grantham Journal carried a large article describing its wonderful new facilities, one of which was ‘telephonic communication with Ashwell, Wymondham, Hambleton, Somerby, Langham, Co tt esmore and Exton’ . Villagers could now make a telephone call from their local post o ffi ce for 2d and be connected with another caller at a post o ffi ce, or a subscriber within their postal area. In May 1907 the Stamford Mercury advised that Uppingham as well as Oakham was now also in ‘telephonic communication with subscribers in England, Scotland and Ireland by payment of the usual trunk fee’. Just over a year a ft er becoming a Telegraphic O ffi ce, on 2 nd June 1890, Langham Post O ffi ce also became a Money Order and Savings Bank O ffi ce, and on 26 th  September 1906, a manual switchboard was installed which was manned from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m . Monday to Saturday and from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. on a Sunday. Calls could be connected out of hours but incurred a late fee charge. The exchange was especially busy in the hunting season or when families frequently titled ones - - were in residence at the ‘big’ houses of the village. In 1894 Robert Isaac took over the running of Langham Post O ffi ce from his grandmother, Mary Ann Bown. By 1910, as more facilities were needed and their family increased, the Isaac family moved their home and the post o ffi ce along the road to the Square (the Green or today, 19 Church Street). Rooms within the family house were turned into a dedicated village Post O ffi ce with a counter, sorting and switchboard room and outside in the wall by the front door, a post box. Public notices were provided by the government, such as this one to ensure that users behaved appropriately in this communal place.

WHAT YOU MAY NOT DO IN A POST OFFICE. Placards in every post office warn the public not to spit, lest they spread Consumption. The infectiousness of Consumption is not fully recognised, and the education of the public on the danger of spitting only progresses slowly. Until this is known, all the King’s efforts and all the King’s doctors cannot stamp out the scourge. Consumptives must learn not to expectorate on the floor or pavement, for infection is dried up and becomes dust : as dust it is breathed, and enters a weak chest or a lung deficient in blood; a cough is caused, blood spitting begins, and ono more consumptive is started on the road whose end is Death. The one effectual way to protect weak chests is by improving the blood supply of the lungs. Consumption is practically draining of blood; it is a natural follower of anaemia. To prevent and cure Consumption fresh blood is of greatest importance; hence the enormous number of lives saved from Consumption this spring by Dr. Williams’ pink pills for pale people. These pills have the splendid property of actually making new blood, not indirectly and by a roundabout process, but directly in every dose. Hence, they cure not only Consumption and anaemia but all disorders arising in the blood, such rheumatism, scrofula, eczema, and other skin diseases, gout, wasting diseases, kidney complaint, indigestion, and bile. If, instead of wasting money and health on purgatives, people would take advantage of the strength Dr. Williams’ pink pills contain, how many lives might be saved! The genuine pills bear the full name. Dr. Williams’ pink pills for pale people and can be obtained wherever medicine is sold. Reliable vendors will not offer substitutes, but Dr. Williams’ medicine company, Holborn-viaduct, London, will send a box post free for two shillings and ninepence or six for thirteen and nine, if there is difficulty in obtaining them elsewhere. Rutland & Stamford Mercury 11th July 1902

Langham telephone exchange opened on 24 September 1906. We can’t be sure what type of equipment the exchange had at opening, but by 1920 we know it had a ‘Central Ba tt ery Signalling, Non-Multiple Type’ switchboard. Picture Courtesy BT Heritage and Archives

Langham Post Office c 1910

A Weller Auto Carrier

This type had a central battery in the exchange, which powered the signal from a subscriber’s phone to tell the operator that they were waiting. However, each subscriber would still have needed a battery in their home to power the speech circuit (i.e. to power the transmission of their voice). The exchange gained automatic equipment sometime between March and September 1935. It would have moved to an electromechanical ‘Strowger’ exchange around 1934. The exchange closed on 26th Nov 1964, with services moving to Oakham. Originally, the mail cart arrived from Oakham at 6.45 a.m., left the Langham and Whissendine bags in the village and journeyed on to Cold Overton and Somerby. The bag was carried by hand to Whissendine, but if the weight was over 50 lbs the Langham postmaster was obliged to supply a horse and cart to carry it. This was no problem to Langham’s post-master Robert Isaac as one was used anyway for his bread deliveries. After 1904, the mail was collected from Oakham by a delivery man called Hedley Rimmington, otherwise known to the Isaac family as ‘Rimmie’. On his three wheel, single cylinder, auto carrier box with tiller steering, he dropped off the mail at Langham Post Office on his way to the post offices at Somerby and Pickwell, collecting the mail for dispatch on his return journey. Deliveries at the start of the war and until 1917, when they altered slightly, were made to Langham at 6.50 a.m. and 2.45 p.m., and dispatches left Langham at 11.50 a.m. and 7 p.m. A letter posted in Oakham by 7 a.m. would reach Edinburgh for the 8.30 p.m. delivery on the same day! Sunday deliveries/ dispatches were just once a day and a little later/earlier. Throughout WWI there were just six subscribers to the Langham telphone exchange but when that number reached twenty, and the switchboard had to be manned for twenty-four hours a day, the manual system was abandoned in favour of the automatic exchange. This was in 1935 and must have coincided with the erection of the small brick building to house the equipment near the bridge on the corner of Bridge Street and Church Street, where Bell Cottage now stands. Post offices were not only responsible for the mail but for the nation’s telegraph and telephone systems, a savings bank and many other important facilities.

During WWI they also ful fi lled a social role being the chief payment agency for the new social security bene fi ts and the recent Separation Allowances paid to the wives of men fi ghting on the front. Post o ffi ces countrywide were also used by various agencies for advertising, and by the government to display and distribute recruitment posters and forms, and in 1917 to circulate ration books. They were therefore vital to Britain’s communications and war e ff orts throughout WW1, making the role of post-master, or sub-postmaster, exempt from war service. Langham’s sub - postmaster, Robert G Isaac was, however, able ‘to do his bit’ by joining the Territorial Division of the Leicester Regiment in October 1914 and serving as a recruiting sergeant, his wife doing the postal work when he was away on training camps.

The post o ffi ce remained in the Square for the next forty-six years but the property was put up for sale in 1949, a ft er the death of the property’s owner Mrs Eliza Munday; the then post-mistress Mrs Hilda Dyson, who had taken over a ft er the retirement of Alice Isaac in 1946, chose to leave the village. She moved to Lincolnshire sometime in 1951. Local man, Jimmy Li tt le, became the next sub-postmaster and moved the post o ffi ce to the end of Well Street where he converted a small stone building in his garden into a post o ffi ce. On  his retirement the post o ffi ce was taken over by his daughter Sheila. Sadly, Sheila died aged only 38 years in 1981, but her husband Bob Walker continued to run the post o ffi ce and shop with his assistant June Matlock, moving its position, in 1986, back to the middle of the village opposite the Village Hall; this was next door to 33 Church Street, and almost back to where it had fi rst begun. This became the village shop, as well as the post o ffi ce, until Bob retired in July 2006. For several months Langham was without a post o ffi ce but at the end of March  2007, an Outreach O ffi ce was started in the Village Hall on Tuesday and Thursday mornings each week. This has now been reduced to only Tuesday mornings but is combined with a pop-up co ff ee shop, so the post o ffi ce is once more a village amenity and meeting place. The small post office building at the end of Well Street became a hairdressing salon and later a private dwelling.

Langham postmasters and postmistresses 18 44 George Fowler 18 4 6 Frances Fowler 18 5 6 Thomas Nettleship 18 5 9 Henry Hayes 18 6 1 Harriett Ann Hayes 18 6 3 – 1868 Closed - Langham’s post office seems to have gone through difficult times during the years 1863 to 1868 18 6 8 – 1894 Robert Bown and Mary Ann Bown 18 9 4 – 1919 Robert George Isaac 1 9 1 9 – 1946 Alice Isaac 1 9 4 6 – 1950 Hilda Dyson 1 9 50 – 1986 Jimmy Little, his wife and daughter Sheila, then Sheila and husband Bob Walker until Sheila’s death in 1981 1 9 8 1 – 2006 Bob Walker and his assistant June Matlock 2006 – 2007 Closed 2007 – 27 th March, reopened in the Village Hall on Tuesday and Thursday mornings as an Oakham Outreach O ffi ce, now only Tuesday mornings.

Reference Material Web Links: Ancestry British Newspaper Archives Genealogy Links Gt Britain Philatelic Society Jane Austen’s World Langham Village History Group Leicester, Leicestershire & Rutland Record Office Postal Museum Rutland County Museum - Trade directories UK Post Offices by County Wikipedia Publications: Duncan Campbell-Smith , Masters of the Post, The Authorised History of the Royal Mail, Penguin Books 2012; Rutland Local History Society Vol 5, Turnpikes and Royal Mail of Rutland, Spiegel Press, 1982;