Gold Post Boxes for Uniqueness

Apparently the Royal Mail have stated that they will not paint a mail box gold for Northern Ireland's own golden girl Kelly Gallagher. They say the the 59 gold post boxes for the Olympians and 50 for the Paralympians were for a unique occurrence.

With 109 of them that is new definition of unique.

But initially there were only 106 of them all of which were on the GB part of Team Great Britain and Norther Ireland. The other three were awarded for five gold medals one for Bethany Firth in Seaforde, County Down, and for their two gold medals apiece but just one box Michael McKillop in Glengormley, Antrim and Jason Smyth in Eglington, Londonderry. These three were UK nationals who competed for the Irish Paralympic team.

However, the case for uniqueness is strong for Kelly Gallagher. She is the first Winter Paralympian ever to win a gold since the first Winter Paralympics in 1976. Plus she is the first GB athlete to win on snow in either the Olympics of Paralympics since 1924.

Therefore I am suggesting if the Royal Mail really want to honour uniqueness there should be 8 more gold mail boxes.

Firstly we need a gold mail bow in Mottingham, Kent to honour Launceston Elliot. Although he was born in Tasmania to Scottish parents it was here that Britain's first gold medalist is listed in both the 1891 and 1901 census. At 21 he won that historic, and unique, first medal in those first 1896  games in the one handed lift. We did another Gold in those first Games but painting a Mail Box gold in O'Connell Street, Dublin to honour John Pius Boland's gold in tennis is asking for trouble.

Next up we need the Royal Mail to say #Ilovecurling and provide Scotland with four more gold mail boxes, indeed South Lanarkshire would get three for itself. Edinburgh would need to find another one to paint gold for Robin Welsh, Biggar would deserve one for Tom Murray,  and f there are two mail boxes in Carnwath they need painting for the father and son team of William Kilgour Jackson and his son Laurence. William was the skip in the first Winter Olympics in Chamonix, France in 1924 of which the other three all member of the Royal Caledonian Curling Club brought home the gold.

There will of course be purists who insist that Kennsington should receive one gold post box instead of Scotland's four to mark the fact that Madge Syers took GB's first gold medal in an ice or snow sport in the 1908 London Olympics. So maybe we should provide one for here uniqueness as well, so make that nine more gold mail boxes.

There will have to either be one in Lacashire where she is from or Watford where she now resides for Margaret Maughan. She was the archer who was the first GB Paralympian to win gold in the 1960 Games which saw 28 gold medals coming back from Rome that year.

As well as these six seven deserving firsts we will also mark the success earlier this week with boxes in Bangor, County Down and Chatham, Kent for Kelly and her guide Charlotte Evans, for their acheivement in the Visually Impaired Super-G.

This would lead to a total of nine new post boxes marking all the firsts now that we have them all. And there will be five for men and four for women.