The Hertford Yarnbombers: The story behind the secret society who take over Hertfordshire’s post boxes

When sending your mail you may have noticed post boxes all over the county look a little different than before.

That’s because there is a mysterious group who spend their time transforming the big red structure dotted around on Hertfordshire’s streets.

They are known as the Secret Society of Hertford Crafters, (SSOHC) – or the Hertford YarnBombers – and they spend hours creating artful scenes out of yarn to display on top of post boxes.

They are loved in and around Hertford and their creations never fail to disappoint.

From their Christmas post box toppers to their 17,000 poppies for the centenary of Armistice Day, residents are always in high anticipation of when their next creation will appear.

One of the founding members, Jo Baily, has now revealed all to the Hertfordshire Mercury about how the secret society was formed.

The story behind The Secret Society of Hertford Crafters:

Before January 2017, Hertford’s streets and postboxes laid bare. There were no creative yarn toppers or knitted flowers outside the shops – it was a very different place.

The idea for the group began during the previous Christmas, when founding member Susanna Carr went on a trip to Kent.

Jo said: “Going back to 2016, Susanna was the lady who thought of it all when she was visiting her family in Kent and saw these postbox toppers.

“She came back to Hertford and said to Anne Haworth and I, ‘I have this really good idea’ and she told us about the toppers in Kent and whether we thought Hertford would be up for it and we went, ‘oh Hertford is really going to be up for it’.

“We asked our other friends if they would like to get involved in a secret project and in January 2017 we launched.

“We decided we wanted to be a bit different and wanted to raise money for charities.”

For those who don’t know what Yarnbombing is, it is to cover an object or structure in a public place with decorative knitted or crocheted material as a form of street art, according to the society.

You could cover statues, posts, seats and other public objects and it’s all done in secret and without official permission.

The society started with 20 members and their first project was to cover all the town’s postboxes in knitted toppers for Christmas 2017.

Each one was covered in a different festive design including Santa, snowmen and trees.

“Normally we just go out and do it and with the post boxes we didn’t even ask Royal Mail for permission,” continued Jo.

“We just thought it’s best to go out and do it then take the flak, but I did write to the manager of the sorting office after the Yarnbombing, telling him nothing other than can I meet with him and I didn’t say him why.

“Luckily he said yes and when we got there he said ‘I think I know why you want a meeting’. He was so helpful throughout and he even got his postal workers to check on the toppers to see if any yarn was coming out or anything like that.

“We managed to raise £14,000 for Isabel Hospice that year.”

The following year the society took on one of their biggest projects to date – the centenary of Armistice Day.

The Yarnbombers knew they wanted to commemorate all those who lost their lives in World War I, and they asked the council to see if they could decorate the Hertford Castle with knitted poppies.

The 59-year-old added: “We did a lot of research about how many poppies we needed.

“For what we planned, we needed 15,000 poppies and 20 of us couldn’t do that. We went on social media and asked if others wanted to work on the secret project.

“Overall about 400 ladies made poppies and we also visited local schools and asked if the children wanted to make a poppy each. 1,661 children helped and in the end we had 17,000 poppies.

“One woman, who was 100 years old, made 10 poppies and she said it wasn’t about the number of poppies we made but about the number of lives who are remembered.

“It was so emotional to think about real people not just poppies.

“We lived and breathed it all for months and when it was finished and we saw the poppies coming down from the castle, we were so emotional – we were also very happy the castle didn’t fall down!

“It was fantastic and it raised £17,000 for the Royal British Legion.

“Within that poppy project we also made 252 poppies to remember the Hertford service men who had died in World War I and were buried in the town.

“When one of our members was working down at the graves, she saw a man hovering about and thought he would complain, but he came over and asked if she could explain what she was doing as this was his great uncle’s grave.

“She explained and he was so completely moved by it, it was lovely.”

‘We couldn’t stop’

In December 2018, the society brought back their Christmas post box toppers with new designs.

One in particular was made for Mark Griffiths from the Royal Mail as he was very supportive of their work. It showed Mark himself emptying a postbox which was placed outside the Post Office on Maidenhead Street.

Last year, (2019), saw the Yarnbombers create the Enchanted Wonderland around Parliament Square to raise funds for the charity CHIPS (Children’s Integrated Playschemes).

Jo said: “We were getting bigger and bigger at this point so we couldn’t just stop, we wanted to keep going.

“The Enchanted Wonderland was so fun to do and it was so lovely to see the children enjoy it.”

In December the Yarnbombers decorated the town with their very own advent tree to help support the Herts Young Homeless charity.

People were invited down each day to open up the tree’s door and see what knitted festive creations were behind.

There was also a Winter Wonderland trail where you could find 12 knitted characters located in businesses around the town centre with the chance of taking one home yourself.

Overall they were able to raise more than £13,000.

“The answer is in our name”

“It’s a lovely group of ladies and we often have a great laugh,” explained Jo.

“Some of the ladies often say things like ‘I used to sit at home on my own and knit and now I come here’, and ‘everybody learns from each other’ or ‘it’s done me so much good after a stressful time’.

“The support from people has been amazing and the comments we have online and on our giving page are lovely.

Speaking about the society’s future plans, Jo said: “Well you may laugh but the answer is in our name.

“We are a secret society which means everything we do is a secret and so I can’t really tell you unfortunately.”

This year the town will wait eagerly to see what the society have in store and what marvellous creations they will come up with next.

If you would like to donate to the YarnBombers visit their fundraiser here.