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Yet without the jet plane to carry passengers over vast distances at high speed, be they businessmen, holidaymakers, politicians or even whole armies, the world in which we now live would be a very different place.

We need to leave the icy cold waters of the North Atlantic, and go thousands of miles back to the dry heat of the Nile Valley in Egypt.

The tradition of Christmas cards began in Britain in the time of Queen Victoria - over 170 years ago ; it is still going well today, even if the number of cards sent each year in Britain is a lot less than it was before the age of mobile phones, email and instant messaging.