Thread: "Northampton News" - WW2 Post Office Newsletters.

Northampton is a town in the Midlands of England and had a population of nearly 100,000 in WW2.
By 1942 most of the male and many of the female Post Office staff, of military service age, were in the services and spread all over the world.
To keep every one in touch and to boost morale, the Post Office managers started monthly meetings called "Tea Time Chats" for families, and started a monthly newsletter: "Northampton News".
The newsletter started off as 2 sides of closely typed A4 sized paper but soon expanded to between 6 and 10 sides, and consisted mainly of excerpts of letters from servicemen and women.
About 500 copies were produced by a manager and his wife, in their own time, at home, and the remarkable wartime postal services delivered them all over the world.
My late father was a postal worker who joined the RN, so the family has an almost complete set of the newsletters. I have scanned 306 pages and placed them on line, along with an index of names and where they appear. The web album includes a number of pictures of the people featured. A few web pages contain further information and a glossary.
The original papers will be donated to the British Postal Museum and Archive.
I believe they offer an interesting insight into attitudes of the time, humour, cohesion, and language used. For a relatively small cohort of people, I think the variety of roles and experiences is remarkable, and considering that most of the correspondents would have left school aged 14, the quality of alot of the writing is impressive. There are tragic losses, decorations, accounts of action, and sightseeing, between the mundane updates on postings etc.
Access is via links as follows:
web album:
Picasa Web Albums - Uptodat - "Northampton ...
Index:
http://tinyurl.com/NorthamptonNewsIndex
webpages:
https://sites.google.com/site/northamptonnews/home

I have added over 100 photos of people who appear in the newsletters. Links to the album at:
https://sites.google.com/site/northamptonnews/home