The Box is a major cultural and heritage attraction and archive, which opened in Plymouth’s city centre in September 2020. Its collection, formally the South West Film and Television Archive (SWFTA), is the regional film archive for the South West of England, comprising the combined programme libraries of Westward Television and Television South West (TSW). It also includes a significant number of donated film collections dating back to the early 1890s.
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Holcombe Post Office
Diamond day for Mary Marlow after 60 years as a postmistress
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Overview
Mary Marlow has been postmistress in Holcombe village on the South Devon Coast for 60 years. This film shows Mary at work in the Post Office at the heart of the village community. In 1903 as a village girl, 17 year old Mary Drusilla Jarman starting working in the Post Office and shop in the end cottage opposite St George’s Church. This film celebrates Mary who has received a British Empire Medal for her long and outstanding service.
The four roomed cottage where Mary lived with her father, Charles Abraham Ware Jarman, a market gardener by trade, was converted. The business used the parlour or reception room to become a General Post Office (GPO) at the turn of the 20th century which in 1969 rebrands as the Post Office. Mary returned to her sender in the year after this film was made and the cottage is now privately owned with the post office having been relocated.
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