AIRGRAPH MAIL

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVI, Issue 121, 18 November 1943, Page 6

AIRGRAPH MAIL

A POPULAR SERVICE

CHRISTMAS POSTINGS

The special Christmas greeting airgraph, which New Zealanders can send to their relatives in Great Britain, Canada, India, or parts of Africa, and which can also be sent to men in the forces in that rather vague area called the Middle East (which embraces North Africa and the Central Mediterranean), has proved a popular innovation. To date some 22,000 have been sent, approximately 14,000 to men in the forces and 8000 to civilians. The number now being received for dispatch approximates 2500 a day, but this number is likely to increase during the next ten days or so. To ensure these special Christmas airgraphs getting to their destination in time for delivery before Christmas, it would be advisable to post them not later than the end of next week. Three clear weeks should be allowed, although the actual transmission time is shorter than that. To the United Kingdom transmission time averages 15 to 17 days, but allowance must be made for possible delay in dispatch or delivery: delivery at once in the Middle East, for instance, is not always easy owing to the way the various units get scattered. New Zealand's Christmas airgraph form is easily the most artistic of the various similar forms issued by Great Britain, Ceylon, and other countries participating in the scheme. It has a floral border of clematis on one side and a tree-fern in one corner, and is surrounded by a Maori border. There is ample space in which to write quite a lengthy personal message, and. the whole shows up very distinctly when it is reduced to the size in which the recipient ultimately gets it. Apart from the special Christmas airgraphs, the airgraph service to and from the Dominion is being very widely used. Well over 20,000 airgraphs addressed to New Zealanders arrive in the country every week, and just under 20,000 a week are sent out of the Dominion;