by
The Romance of the Envelope
The Romance of the Envelope is a quilt made by Charlotte Soares, shown at the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham in 2010.
People who have visited me will have seen it on my wall. It was made in reaction to my book, Dear Granny Smith, written under the name Roy Mayall, when I was working for the Royal Mail in 2009. It was my most successful book ever, selling over 12,000 copies and reaching number 6 in the Amazon chart. This is probably due to the fact that it was Book of the Week on Radio 4 in the week starting Monday 14th December 2009. People heard the programme and then bought the book.
You can buy the book here and listen to the entire Book of the Week series below:
You can also find the entire collection of my writings under the name Roy Mayall here:
https://roymayall.wordpress.com
Unfortunately the book is now out of date. It was written before privatisation and predicts the future for the Royal Mail in the economic atmosphere at the time. I got many things wrong. Nevertheless it is a real slice of life piece depicting the life of a Royal Mail postal delivery officer in the first decade of the 21st century: a lament for a lost past and looking forward to the prospect of an uncertain future.
Charlotte, an artist living in London, had heard the radio broadcast and read the book, and was shocked by what she found there: the partial privatisation of the mail service that was going on at the time, undercover, without informing the public. Her quilt depicts, in a very graphic way, the state of the Royal Mail at the time.
The film was made in 2010 by Lois Davis, a friend and film maker. It shows me, CJ Stone, as Roy Mayall, discussing the quilt with Charlotte at her house, before she passed it on to me for safe keeping. It has had pride of place on my wall ever since, as a reminder both of the book that I wrote, and of the 13 years I spent as a postal worker in Whitstable and Canterbury, from 2005-2018.
You can watch the film here:
Coincidentally, in that same year Steve Somerset of the Shadow Kabinet wrote a song and made a video based upon the book.
You can watch that here:
Enjoy!
About CJ Stone
CJ Stone is an author, columnist and feature writer. He has written seven books, and columns and articles for many newspapers and magazines.
Read more of CJ Stone’s work here, here and here.
Whitstable Views: How You Can Help
- Make sure you share and like our articles on Facebook and Twitter, and whatever other social-media platforms you use.
- Follow the site to get regular updates about new articles when they appear. Press the “Follow” icon in the bottom right hand corner of your screen and that will take you to the option to sign up. (It disappears as you move the text down, then reappears as you move it back up again!)
- Leave comments on the site rather than on Facebook. Let’s get a debate going. All of our contributors are willing to engage with you if you leave a comment.
- To all writers out there, we would LOVE you to make a contribution. Read our submissions page for details on how to go about that: https://whitstableviews.com/submissions/
- Finally you can donate. As little as £1 would help. Details on the donations page here: https://whitstableviews.com/donate/
Whitstable Views 