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King Charles has sent a personalised Christmas present to the
”bottom of the world”.
There’s now a brand new bright red post box, bearing his cypher,
in the middle of Antarctica.
It’s been sent there by The King to help people working there
stay in touch with friends and family back home.
There are relatively few post boxes with The King’s cypher on
them with the first appearing in Cambridgeshire in 2024.
This post box was requested by Kirsten Shaw, who runs the Post
Office in the British Antarctic Territory. She wrote to King
Charles in 2022 to request a box with his cypher on it and now her
wish has come true, just in time for Christmas.
The Royal Household has worked with the British Antarctic Survey
and Royal Mail to get a post box out to the Territory. It said it
was eager to support the UK’s Rothera Research Station.
Its first visitor was a penguin. However, it is set to be put to
far more use in the coming months.
It will be installed in the Discovery Building at the Rothera
Station which is set to be finished by April 2026.
Letters posted in the box will be sent firstly to the Falkland
Islands and then on to the UK where they are then put into the
usual postal system.
It can take weeks to come and go from Antarctica but for many
working there, often on stints lasting months, they are the only
contact they have with home.
Rothera Station is at Rothera, the capital of the British
Overseas Territory of the British Antarctic Territory. In its
busiest months, which run from October to March, it has a
population of about 160 people. For the rest of the year, it has a
population of around 30.
A British Overseas Territory has an historic or constitutional
tie to the UK and is considered part of its sovereign territory.
There are fourteen in total including Bermuda and the Cayman
Islands which are the largest by population.
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