An island company celebrated the 60th anniversary of British postcodes with a million-pound charity giveaway at its annual charity evening.

Charities from the Isle of Man and right across the world will benefit from the AFD Group’s generosity.

Ernest Marples, UK postmaster general, commissioned postcodes and the first ELSIE sorting machines to help sort the post in the Norwich area in July 1959.

It wasn’t until 1993 that postcodes were introduced in the Isle of Man.

Postcode data is used by many companies now for many purposes.

AFD Software Ltd, which is based at Mountain View Innovation Centre just outside Ramsey, has specialised in postcode software for 25 years.

It distributes data on the 30 million delivery addresses in the UK from the Royal Mail’s mainframe computer files, to more than 40,000 organisations who use it on their web-sites or in their record systems.

AFD’s products are used by websites and computer databases where using the postcode helps businesses, charities and public sector organisations to enter addresses quickly, accurately and consistently.

The company says this work cuts waste and ensures that products and services can be delivered efficiently and on time.

Each year, every member of AFD Software’s 40-strong workforce is invited to nominate a charity to receive a company donation in their name.

Charity and community representatives, along with the company’s neighbours, gathered to celebrate these donations.

Eighty charities will benefit.

Their remits include education, fighting sex trafficking and human slavery, medical research and helping homeless people in the Isle of Man.