St. Helena: first local post service 1965

Hey… Isn't that the island where Napoleon was exiled to? That's right. After his escape from Elba and his defeat at Waterloo he was exiled to St. Helena. An island in the Atlantic Ocean between Africa and South America, far away from civilization, with almost no transport to it.
The mail that was occasionally sent to the island was placed under a stone by the sailors and collected by local residents.

Until the mid-20th century there was only one post office, in the capital Jamestown. But that changed in 1965.

Before that year there was no local postal traffic on the island. As mentioned, there was one post office in Jamestown. Residents from other parts of the island had to collect and send their mail there. That changed in 1965 with the establishment of a local postal service, with delivery to and collection of mail from auxiliary post offices throughout the country. Details of this service were announced in the Notice below, published in the Government Gezette. Before the service actually started, the proposed auxiliary post office names of Church Ground Point and Red Hill were changed to St. Pauls 1 and 2. Here is a translation of the notice, text in italics is added commentary:

No. 219 Notice

A local postal service will be started on January 4, 1965. The service is designed to collect mail from post boxes, which have already been installed, at central points in the country, for the transportation of mail between Jamestown and the auxiliary post offices in the rural area and vice versa and between the auxiliary post offices themselves. She will operate five days a week - Monday to Friday, except when a ship delivering mail arrives on one of these days.

Prices:
- Letters, cards and parcels no heavier than 3 ozs (± 90 gr.)
- Parcels of 3 ozs up to 5 lbs (± 2270 gr.)

1d.
6d.

auxiliary post offices:
- Longwood
- Levelwood
- Sandy Bay
- Blue Hill
- Church Ground Point       (St. Pauls 1)
- Red Hill                          (St. Pauls 2)
- New Ground
- Half Tree Hollow              (H.T. Hollow)

Mr. L.I.D. Williams's Store
Mr. G.W. Scipio's Store
Mrs. E.R. Grahams's Store
Mrs. G.E. Steven's Store
Mrs. L. Francis's Store
Mr. P.C. Stroud's Store
Mr. C.H. Yon's Store
Mr. R.W. Georges Store

The postman collects the mail at the post office in Jamestown and takes it to the auxiliary post offices on his motor scooter.

The following are articles regarding the processing of mail.

The last paragraph concerns the First Day Covers that are issued to commemorate the start of the local postal service.

O.N. Duncan, Postmaster
The Postal Service, St. Helena,
September 9, 1964.

The various auxiliary post offices spread across the country:

The first eight auxiliary post offices are shops where stamps are sold, but where no further postal activities take place. After the start of the local postal service, mail can be delivered and collected here.
Each auxiliary post office gets its own postmark. In the round postmark we see ST. HELENA in the upper part and in the lower part the name of the auxiliary post office, for example ST. PAULS 1.

For us as motor philatelists it is important that the 'Notice' sent on September 9, 1964 indicates that the connection between the post office and the auxiliary post offices is maintained using motor scooters. Although we can assume that much of the mail was transported by motor scooter after January 4, this is not always the case. Simply linking the stamps to the use of motor scooters is therefore not correct. This in contrast to all FDCs issued to commemorate the start of the local postal service and franked with overprinted stamps, all of which were transported by motor scooter.

All FDCs that refer to the start of the local postal service have a black/red imprint. The words Local Mail, First Day Cover and the image of the 1d stamp are in red.
Each FDC receives a special postmark with the image of the postal worker on his scooter.

They have been provided with 4 stamps with overprint: "FIRST LOCAL POST 4th JANUARY 1965". Various errors occur in the overprint:

The stamps of all FDCs submitted to one of the eight auxiliary post offices before 10 a.m. were cancelled with the auxiliary post office's postmark with the date (JAN 4, 1965) in the center of the mark.

Some images of the FDCs:

LEVELWOOD