In the digital age we can be excused for thinking that a postal strike would not disrupt communications. What will surprise you is that the volume of letters that the Royal Mail handled steadily increased up to the year 2006 and although it has suffered a decline it still handles an average daily postbag of over 70 million letters.

With endless stories about post office closures and a UK postal strike looming from October 22 we thought it was time to ignore the pessimism and celebrate the postal service, from the days of the penny post to packet rates, delivered by mail services throughout the globe, that we still cannot do without.