The Back Story
Back in November 2025, Royal Mail wrapped the post box up in black plastic outside the Post Office on High Street, preventing Syston Knitting Banxy from being able to use it for her knitted creations.
This caused a lot of upset in Syston and people where saying we should fund raise and buy a decommissioned post box specifically for our local artist in wool to display her uplifting creations.
Well Jay Anderson did exactly that, and as it started to build with the help of Tracey Appleyard and Charlotte Ryan fundraising around Syston, plus people from as far away as the USA adding to the gofundme page, in January it was almost at its target of £3,500. Then a local resident, Thomas Brightwell, who donated enough to get it to the finishing amount, Thank you Thomas.
Once the total had been reached, Jay collected a decommissioned post box which was a lot heavier than even he thought. Then the hard work began for Jay to renovate it as it is a 1955 post box and was not in bad condition but he stripped it back to the base layer and repaired the rust on the bottom of the door and side of the post box. The picture above shows the post box before the renovations started.
It took about three weeks for the post box to be renovated and Jay invited some of the fundraisers and your editor to go and paint a layer of the under coat. These included: Tracey, Charlotte and Jo Cochrane who was the naughty elf for the carol singing they did before Christmas and Thomas Brightwell, see pictures below, but Jay did the majority of the work for which SKB is forever grateful.
While all this was going on, we had to find a place for the post box to be installed and SKB is very pleased that the Syston Methodist Church agreed to allow it to be put on their land outside the Church Hall entrance, on High Street. Kim, representing the Minister said at the event how pleased the congregation were to have it on their land and to enable SKB to continue with her creations.
Once it was fully renovated, see our image above left, it had to be installed. Ady Dayman asked his brother Ashley to help. On Thursday 26th February Ashley, pictured below with his team met Jay on High street and together they successfully installed the Post Box. Thank you to Ashley and his team.
SKB would like to thank everyone who donated, helped in the renovation and installation of this wonderful Post Box, a generous act by the community to allow her to continue to put our her creations and bring happiness to everyone who sees them.
Finally, a big Thank you to all the guests who came to event and made it very special. Plus it was covered by both BBC and ITV media and appeared on both channels.
