Stamps And Letters: Ironbridge Mailart

Mailart from Arthur is in the post and had not yet arrived when I was putting this feature together so once it turns up I will of course feature it. In the meantime I am showing a previous Royal Mail Ironbridge stamp from 1989.

Ironbridge mailart from:

Arthur Patrick Neeson - Chartered builder.

As a small boy I was fascinated by toy cars - I used to prize them apart to see what was inside - to see how they worked.  It was natural for me to pursue a career that enabled me to satisfy this fascination - construction. 

I worked on the construction of the Lagan Road Bridge and Dargan rail bridge in Belfast for one and a half years. It was one of Northern Ireland's biggest construction projects.

What it gave me was a love of bridges. They're not flights of fancy - everyone can use a bridge. And in construction terms the solutions you need to bridge a gap have pushed building professionals to do bigger and do better.

 

The Iron Bridge  which spans the River Severn at Ironbridge Gorge symbolises that endeavour. It was the first arch bridge in the world to be made out of. It was about engineers trying something new - utilising new materials, (cast iron), to do new things do new things. 

 

And from that period on the use of iron moved on apace - you then see the emergence of wrought iron and then steel which literally allowed architects and engineers to reach new heights, to go from two or three story building to skyscrapers. And my mail art reflects that - as structures move from iron to steel and we continue to stretch the bounds of what is possible.