Saying goodbye to PO Box 48

I'm changing my address. Not that it'll bother many people, but I've suddenly realised I don't need a PO Box any more. So, after nearly 30 years of having the address "PO Box 48, Clevedon" I'll be going back to using my home address (available on request). Why I didn't do it before now I can't think.

Way back in 1991 I first found I needed a PO Box because I was starting to edit magazines. And back in those days, that meant a whole load of artwork delivered on A3 paper, far too big to fit through a letterbox. It also meant dealing with writers and artists all desperate to be in your publication (they were called UT, Gag, Kack and Bloody Hell, what do you mean you don't remember them?), and who wanted that sort being able to turn up at your door out of the blue?

So a PO Box, where they would hang onto my mail and I would collect it in person, was the ideal arrangement. For a few years I worked in a studio on Sixways in Clevedon, which overlooked the Post Office, and was directly above the bank. All my working world was on that one roundabout, and all a 5 minute walk from home.

In more recent years, not only have I long since stopped editing comics, but the world's stopped sending things by mail. If they do post things, more stuff is likely to come by courier than by Royal Mail anyway, in which case it has to come to the house not the PO Box, so the thing's next to obsolete.

There are a few people I'll need to update. For example the one school in fifty that still pays me by cheque instead of BACS. But that's a pretty straightforward matter of amending my letter heading.

So farewell then, PO Box 48, it's been nice making that pleasant but increasingly fruitless visit to the Post Office sorting office every other day, but in the spirit of moving on that I've been doing a lot of in the last 6 months, I'll manage.

Oh yeah, I also discovered the PO Box costs over £250 a year. Forget that.

Kev F Sutherland, as well as writing and drawing for The Beano, Marvel, Doctor Who et al, runs Comic Art Masterclasses in schools, libraries & art centres. email for details. Facebook, Twitter. Promo video here.