I received a surprise letter from England in the mail yesterday. I rarely get letters, and since embracing email I rarely write them either.
A couple of weeks ago I received a nice letter from Ebony Jackson, who sometimes comments here and on The Border Watch website.
The English letter was from someone I have never met or heard of before.
I don’t think it’s a scam letter, but it is a little odd.
Nigel must have obtained my postal address from this website or somewhere online. It’s strange that he wrote, rather than sent an email. The stamp cost him 81p (A$1.76).
He sent a postcard and a typed form letter with handwriting at the bottom: “Please can you be my penfriend”, except he writes in capitals.
The letterhead includes a photo of Nigel. He says that he is 28 years old, 6’2 with black hair and brown eyes. He works in the warehouse of a large department store.
Now, if the letter had come from Irma in Poland or Valeriya in Russia I might have suspected something, especially if she was cute and available.
Nigel isn’t offering anything except correspondence.
His hobbies include film, television, music and travelling. He has been to the United States, Canada, Sri Lanka and Thailand.
Nigel, I like travelling but don’t have time or money for it. I’m not very interested in movies and I don’t watch television, so I’m afraid I’d be a rather dull penfriend.
When I first picked up the envelope (above) I thought it was from Australia and I was trying to figure out where Mount Pleasant is. I suppose postmarks have a universal appearance and since we have the same Queen it wasn’t unusual to see Elizabeth on the stamp.
It was only the “air mail” sticker which persuaded me the letter had travelled far to reach me.
As for Mount Pleasant, I’ve discovered it’s one of the largest mail sorting centres in the world, covering an area of 7.5 acres.
It’s home to an expansive set of train tunnels which run 70 feet under the streets of central London between Whitechapel and Paddington. The entire tunnel network was built to deliver the post and is 23 miles long. It was used up until May 2003.
Nigel’s letter has at least given me something to blog about and taught me something interesting about the unlikely topic of mail sorting.
That’s so mysterious.
Did he say how he found your name or why he wants you as a penpal?
He sounds nice. I do wonder why he didn’t approach you first via email.
He does seem like a mystery man…interestingly edgy and a bit out there.
Perhaps he fancies you Michael?
He might even be gay? lonely?…but not available.
Twitter: mgorey
says:
The more I think about this, the more I suspect it’s probably a scam. There are too many strange things about the letter.
It would be dangerous for anyone corresponding with an unknown person to reveal personal information, eg date of birth, residential address, family details, signature.
Twitter: delmerw
says:
He’s not one of the English Cricket players I mentioned the other day, is he?
Twitter: mgorey
says:
Delmer, I’m surprised you didn’t make more of the fact his name was “Nigel”. It was actually Matthew
Dina, there was no explanation how he found me.
He described himself as having black hair (why do I need to know that?) but the picture showed him to have light brown hair.
He wrote ME with an arrow pointing to the picture. Apart from that and the last sentence, everything was typed.
Surely, anyone these days who genuinely wanted a penfriend would email first and link to a blog or website.
This is the sort of thing that A C Doyle would have made into a Sherlock Holmes story. “The League of Black-Haired Men”, perhaps.