Call for gold post box in Bedworth

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MP Dan Byles has joined the call for Bedworth to be granted a gold post box to salute Nick Skelton’s Olympic success.

The hometown show-jumper led Great Britain to a team gold medal and Royal Mail is now being urged to extend their London 2012 pledge.

Every gold medal winner has had a post box painted gold in a town connected with them – and Skelton has been honoured in Alcester, near where he now lives.

But a campaign has been launched for Royal Mail to do the same in Bedworth – Skelton’s birthplace 54 years ago and the site of a chemist business, set up by his grandfather, which still bears the family name.

Mr Byles said: “I am fully behind the campaign to have a second post box painted gold in Bedworth, to celebrate Nick’s achievement, and have formally written to Royal Mail asking for this to be done.”

The politician is one of 800 supporters on a Facebook page, set up to push the claim after a gold medal cyclist was given a second gold post box in similar circumstances.

A statement from a Royal Mail spokesman, reproduced on Facebook, said: “We painted another postbox for Laura Trott at her personal request, after she told us that while she was born in Harlow, she considered Cheshunt her hometown.

“We try to locate gold post box locations in the athlete’s home towns.

“This could be where they were born, where they grew up or where they presently live and we look at all these factors before reaching a considered choice.

“I understand the level of public support for a gold post box in Bedworth, but as Nick requested the gold post box be painted in Alcester to celebrate his gold medal win, I feel we should respect his wishes.”

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Bedworth angry over gold postbox 'snub' after Skelton chooses Alcester

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ANGRY Bedworth residents are bombarding the Royal Mail with letters and e-mails because they think Nick Skelton's gold postbox should be in their town and not Alcester.

Despite the fact the 54-year-old showjumper chose where to have his postbox, Bedworth is united in anger because Skelton was born in the North Warwickshire town.

Residents claim the Royal Mail have “snubbed” them and taken the shine off “their” Olympic gold, and a campaign has been launched to get one of their own postboxes repainted.


Last week, a postbox on Alcester’s High Street was painted gold after Skelton - who lives in Shelfied, a small village north of the town - won gold in the Equestrian Team showjumping. The Royal Mail are giving one postbox a golden paintjob in every home town of British winners at the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Around 800 people are members of a Facebook campaign titled “Bedworth should get a golden postbox because of Nick Skelton’s gold win," and the Mayor of Nuneaton and Bedworth, John Haynes, said: “He [Skelton] is a Bedworth bloke and I knew of him when he was a lad.”

The showjumper only lived in Bedworth until he was 13 or 14 years old, moving away some 40 years ago, and although there is a chemist in the town called Skelton’s, this has not been owned by the family for some years.

According to the local newspaper, the Nuneaton News, Bedworth townsfolk are “furious” with the Royal Mail.

However, in a letter from the Royal Mail to a campaigning Bedworth resident, a Royal Mail spokesperson said: “We painted that postbox [in Alcester] at the request of Nick’s office.”

This answer is not enough for some though, who have threatened to glam up a Bedworth postbox without the Royal Mail’s consent, which, by the strict letter of the law, would be vandalism.

Police recently arrested a 51-year-old man for doing just that in Lymington, where Ben Ainslie lives. The golden postbox in honour of the British sailor was painted in Cornwall, where he grew up.


Nick Skelton won the Equestrian Team Jumping gold with Ben Maher, Peter Charles and Scott Brash.

Bedworth obviously feel Skelton belongs to them. There is currently an exhibition that chronicles his glittering career at the Bedworth Heritage Centre; the Nuneaton News ran an article headlined “They’ve nicked our gold”; and in an ongoing poll on the paper’s website, 79 per cent of people said Bedworth should have a gold postbox.

Skelton’s gold was both long-overdue and remarkable. Competing in his sixth Olympics, the man who has been at the top of the sport for over three decades had never even won a medal.

Just to get to London 2012 he had to recover from a broken neck in 2000, and following a hip replacement last year, the patched-up jumper has to undergo back surgery later this year.

A Royal Mail spokesperson said: "Should Nick request us to paint a post box in Bedworth we would of course do so."

Gold postbox for Stratford-upon-Avon?

Stratford could have it’s own golden postbox in a couple of weeks when James Roe, a double World Rowing Champion in the LTA (Legs Trunks and Arms) mixed coxed four, competes at the Paralympics.

A former King Edward VI School pupil and a member of Stratford Boat Club, the 24-year-old visually-impaired rower is hoping to add Paralympic success to his two gold medals from the World Rowing Championships.

The Paralympics opening ceremony is on Wednesday 29th August, and the rowing starts on Friday 31st, concluding with the medal races on Sunday 2nd September.