In Search of the Great Postman

In 2021, with friends from Biblioteques de Barcelona and the Museu del Joguet de Catalunya-Figueres, we promoted an exhibition and a book about the relationship between writers and toys. All the writers were children, and many of them talk about toys in their works. The idea was to create associations between the texts I found and the toys in the museum. It was a lot of fun.

An exhibition—and a collective book—is a team effort. It's important that people feel comfortable. I asked collaborators and friends if they had photographs of them delivering the letter to the Three Wise Men, and I got quite a few. The idea was to open the book with the three postmen collecting the letter from one of us and end with a pair of old shoes belonging to the poet Joan Brossa, deposited in the Museu del Joguet, with three small glasses of aniseed for Their Majesties—aniseed, cognac, and Calisay—and bread for the camels, as was the custom in the past. We chose the most unique ones, and I was chosen to appear alongside a spectacular red-haired postman, wearing a kind of ermine vest, an enormous turban with various pearl bows, shiny trousers, and white boots with braided laces. He looks like Sandokan! Emilio Salgari's character starred in a highly successful television series, but it was quite a while after this photo: in 1976. My mother dressed me in a coat and a verdugo, that garment that covered the head, leaving a small window for the face. Accustomed to rarely leaving the neighborhood, I thought: "They really spent it at the Casino de l'Aliança del Poblenou, with this postman."

There must be hundreds, thousands of photographs with this type of turban, with the pearls and the white boots.

My friend Conxita Gil, who works in museums, bought the book, and it turned out it had a photograph of the same royal postman. Conxita didn't live in Poblenou, so the Alliance was out of the question. A few days ago, while working on another project, I found a 1970 Destino magazine cover with a photograph of our red-haired postman, a work by Ernest Vilà. I did a little digging and discovered he was an important figure. Between 1962 and 1971, he used to set up shop in front of El Corte Inglés in Plaça de Catalunya. He was driven around in a haiga car, and one year he arrived in Barcelona by plane. He played a role, and his name never appears. But there must be hundreds, thousands of photographs of this guy with the turban, the pearls, and the white boots with braided laces. Years ago, in a Twitter thread, they identified the Chief Royal Postman of Madrid, who turned out to be named Sandalio. This whole story reminds me of F.W. Murnau's 1924 film, The Last Man , about a man from a poor neighborhood who is transfigured as he heads off, elegantly dressed, to work as a doorman at a grand hotel. What a subject for a story: you're looking for the postman to deliver a letter containing something you didn't ask for, or something you'd like to ask for now. So far, with the erminine waistcoat, the executioner, and the knee-high boots, it seems to me like an unbeatable summer theme.