Reginald Bray - story about Forest Hill resident

[anon10646030]

W Reginald Bray, an accountant from Forest Hill in south-east London, claimed to hold that honour having posted himself successfully in 1900, then again in 1903 and for a last time in 1932.

The strangest things sent in the post

[anon51837532]

Have heard this chap’s story before.

But did he have to use Forest Hill PO ?

[anon10646030]

Maybe we should keep up the tradition and sending all sorts of weird and wonderful things out of Forest Hill and see the reaction of the post office, who will start with flip flops or maybe stamped Brüssel sprouts

[Michael]

W Reginald Bray, the autograph king

[applespider]

The postcard quiz did feel particularly easy, mind you.

[ForestHull]

Following on from this old story, London News Online has a new article about this ‘Forest Hill eccentric’, detailing some of the odd things he managed to post, as well as a variety of autographs he was able to collect:

Postal service obsessive was a first class male…

…
Willie Reginald Bray was born in April 1879, the son of the solicitor’s clerk Edmund Henry Bray, of Forest Hill in Kent.

In 1898, He amassed stamps, postmarks, train tickets, and girlfriends, and tried posting an unimaginable array of things, to see whether the post office would deliver them.

Apparently, at the time, the smallest item that could be posted was a bee, and the largest an elephant.

So this eccentric youngster developed a mania with posting curious postcards, and indeed other objects, through the Royal Mail, to have them delivered back to himself.

He stamped and sent some onions, a bicycle pump, a frying pan and an Irish Terrier.
…