t's not Harriet Russell's letters that are so original - it's the way she sends them. Now her 'game' with the Post Office has produced a first-class book, finds Horatia Harrod

As family traditions go, it's unusual. But Harriet Russell is only the latest in her family to seek to amaze and befuddle the men and women of the Royal Mail. Her great-great-great grandfather, Henry Ponsonby, was an eminent Victorian - a veteran of the Crimean War, private secretary to the Queen - who also had a hobby of embellishing the envelopes of the letters he sent with whimsical pictures. The addresses would appear as signposts in snowstorms or as huge envelopes shouldered by tiny people.

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