I hate to say this, but I take exception to that statement. Perhaps you can try and qualify it with detail of what (to your opinion) qualifies a design as rubbish or not?The Stationary Traveller wrote:The proliferation of roadside boxes or rubbish designs did not help.
Regardless of when whomever started boxing, please, PLEASE don't do the "purist" thing!
The way I see it is that the moor belongs to everybody, even to those that cannot stand it, and yes, yes are such people. Obviously I'm using the word belong in a metaphorical rather than Land Registry sense here!
Some of us love the moor and suffer withdrawal symptoms when not visiting it often enough. Some of us views letterboxing as a good excuse to be out and about on the moor, as opposed to Dartmoor being a handy place to do letterboxing.
To some of us the focus is and will always remain on the moor and not on some letterbox, however much pleasure we may obtain from seeking out and hopefully finding letterboxes.
Some of us understand the huge economic benefit letterboxers bring to Dartmoor and surrounds - a benefit that allows people to live in the area. In economic sense it doesn't matter whether or not a letterboxer only uses shop-bought stamps, or delicate hand-carved exquisite creations.
So please, step back a moment from your purist idealism and look at what is best for the moor first, then what (to your opinion) is best for letterboxing.
The moor was there long before letterboxing started, and will be there long after letterboxing faded away (as all things eventually do).