Message in a bottle

Museums are brilliant for kids these days. Centuries ago, when I was little I remember moaning every time my Mum took us to museum but today there is so much to interact with and enjoy. 

Some museums however, are even better than brilliant.

Gil's been loving his letter writing topic at school, and Ferdy's focus this week has been to form his letters in such a way that we might actually be able to read some of his splendid ideas, so a long awaited trip to the Postal Museum in London came at just the right time.

Our day at this unique place began with a ride on the Mail Rail which entailed a journey beneath the streets of London through hidden tunnels in the old mail train, used to transport all the post citywide. We pretended we were letters: Gil was a letter to Santa and Ferdy a letter to Dave Pilkey and were treated along the way to information about the 100 year old tunnels. The power cut was a little scary, although obviously we guessed it wasn't real...

But the adventure was just beginning. We boarded a travelling post office in order to sort the mail; became operators of the trains moving around the Mail Rail network shunting cars east and westbound through Mount Pleasant; met the Jolly Postman and a piece of post over 300 years old and learnt about how when letters started being sent, you had to pay to receive the letter, rather than send it, and how MPs could send and receive letters for free, yet the general public had to pay (one rule for them... hmm sounds familiar). We designed stamps with our own faces adorned with big lips and crowns; dressed up as an exceedingly dashing Mail Coach Guard (Gil) and a slightly cheeky Boy Messenger (Ferdy); joined the sorting office team gathering parcels from postboxes and sorting them at the depot, and Gil even managed to post the letter he had written to Santa.

Absolute best of all however, was the pneumatic tube transport system where a tube containing a handwritten message is sent whizzing from one side of the museum to the other and back again with the message having been read and replaced with a new one. Ferdy and Gil could have spent all day on this, especially when some other kids joined in. Ferdy's writing has never been so clear and legible.