When the British Forces are deployed on operations they are entitled to free aerogrammers (colloquially known as "blueys" because of their colour) to and from their families and friends. This service has been in place for a considerable time. blueys as we know them today were issued for the first time during the early days of the Northern Ireland deployment. More recently BFPO, working in conjunction with SuperLetter.com, has pioneered an electronic form of the bluey known as ' e-bluey '.
The e-bluey is a Hybrid mail system that allows service personnel, relatives and friends to maintain a personal and private contact with each other while serving on operations or exercise for more than 60 days duration. Probably the most important factor is that the system is two way. This means those service personnel with access to the Internet can send e-blueys back home
You can either compose your message online or offline using a word processor or the Quick Letter Writer. This message is sent to a sever, where it is stored prior to being down-loaded by the Forces Post Office (FPO) in the appropriate operational theatre. It is then printed and enveloped before being passed into the local FPO mail stream. The system is private and personal as the text is only seen by the originator and the recipient, there are two stages of encryption to ensure that the message remains private and personal. The specialist machinery prints and envelops it automatically. The service is free to the user, although the MOD pays a fee for each letter transmitted. The time of transmission of a letter to a serviceman/woman can be dramatically reduced, as it is not necessary to physically transport the letter through the military mail system.
Relatives, friends of service personal who are deployed on operations are entitled to use the e-bluey service. The e-bluey web-site has a drop down list of BFPO numbers that can be reached through the service. Revenue protection measures are implemented from time to time at the BFPO Headquarters in London and by the e-bluey web administrator who ensures that the system is being used correctly.
pay-bluey works in the same format as e-bluey, it is a Hybrid mail system that allows service personnel, relatives and friends to maintain a personal and private contact with each other while serving overseas at British Forces Post Offices that are not covered by the Operational Welfare Package. The main difference between each system is, e-bluey is free to use and as it states in the name you have to pay for the pay-bluey service. However, please remember you are only able to use the pay-bluey service where we have installed an e-bluey system.
Letters can be composed using popular word processing packages, such as Microsoft Word, and copied then pasted into the system. Alternatively the Off-line Composer can be download from our web site. The QLW is a combination of the cut and paste function, offline composer and the report viewer all rolled in to one piece of software.
The aim of the QLW is to allow users to compose a letter on their PC, without the need to be connected to the Internet while doing so.
Can I use e-bluey to contact my bank or other commercial company?
The e-bluey system is designed for communication between friends, relatives and service personnel. As it is free it is not possible to use it to communicate with commercial companies or people other than friends and relatives. Indeed conventional free forces air letters cannot be used for this purpose either. Revenue protection measures are in place to prevent misuse of the system. Letters that fall outside the legitimate use of the system are surcharged.
