'Staff inside Royal Mail's 'Christmas Control Room' work seven days a week keeping track of some 1,000 million cards, letters and parcels the Post Office expects to handle over the festive period.
Should disaster strike - a snow blizzard, rail accident, flooding - the Control Room can direct mail to other routes and methods of transport, making full use of the Royal Mail's unique air, road and rail network' - 1983.
Photograph taken at Mount Pleasant, London. Colleagues sorting parcels into wheeled containers. In the foreground are two sorters holding poultry - 1950.
Post early for Christmas campaign poster. Artist unknown - 1956.
Temporary staff sorting letters at Mount Pleasant, London, seated at a sorting frame labelled 'Extra European' - 1967.
Photograph taken at Mount Pleasant, London. Christmas casuals sorting parcels into wheeled containers - 1950.
