Guest 673- Registered: 16 Jun 2008
- Posts: 1,388
6 December 2010
06:3283403#21
I always seem to get my post the very next day and would hate to see the Royal Mail privatised. Another major bonus is that if I am out then the post is returned to the delivery office in Granville Street and I can go and collect it, whereas a courier service returns it to Faversham or wherever and a new delivery date has to be arranged.
Looking at a couple of websites, the general opinion seems to be that the unusual hiatus in deliveries has been due to health and safety rules pertaining to the snow and ice. One poster in London said that they had had no deliveries for three days and were waiting for a snow shovel which they had ordered!
If the answer to this is privatisation then does that mean that a privatised service will cut corners by ignoring the health and safety of their workforce?
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
6 December 2010
07:2783404#22
No Ed - it should mean a more balanced and sensible view of H&S - as per the milkman and newpaper boys.
I have to say that sounds like a very sad and pathetic claim to me. There was a time when 'the mail had to get through', previous generations of postmen will be turning in their grave. Whatever happen to the spirit of 'The Pony Express'.....
Brian Dixon
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
6 December 2010
08:2983407#23
barryw,the pony died due to being over worked and being not fed enough.
Jan Higgins
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 5 Jul 2010
- Posts: 13,931
6 December 2010
11:0083414#24
I would rather go without my post than the postman gets a broken leg, it just seemed strange that milkman and paperboy delivered and the postman did not.
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I try to be neutral and polite but it is hard and getting even more difficult at times.
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howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
6 December 2010
11:0683415#25
i can only speak for my area, it was far too dangerous for milk or post operatives to walk around.
too hilly for one thing and too many untreated steps up and down to front doors.
6 December 2010
11:2883417#26
I spoke to the sorting office this morning to be told why we had no post for three days in Aycliffe, the roads get gritted the pavements don't and we will have to wait to catch up on the post as the post man can only deliver so much so any body waiting for post from last week will have to wait till Wednesday. so if the post office got rid of all the junk mail and delivered the real post we would be grateful.Sorry they did say that if anyone wishes to go and collect there post they may but take some ID.
Guest 666- Registered: 25 Mar 2008
- Posts: 323
6 December 2010
11:5283419#27
I temped as a 'Postie' in Hythe for a few days back in 2004 and found it very physically demanding, getting there to sort the round at 05.00, then having x3 bags of post to deliver, one on bike from the sorting office then continuing the round from next (van dropped 15kg bag) and so on till all delivered.
Lots of fun on a sunny day, but in ice and snow and with the H&S noose round their necks I cannot see how the service would run in very bad weather, praise to the ones who delivered.
Rasp-berrys
to the people charged with keeping the pavements clear.
I read that Posties bikes are to be taken in and given to charity, wonder how it will work after that as a lot of rounds can be away from the main roads and inaccessible from a van?
Oh Boy!, That'll be the day.........
Brian Dixon- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
6 December 2010
12:2083427#28
howard,spoke to the milkperson this mornig,she was saying she got home at 5 pm friday absolutly cream crackerd.normerly takes her 30 miniuts to get to brodstairs,friday took her 90 miniuts each way.
ps,said she leave you 4 whisky flaverd yogurts on wednesday.
Sue Nicholas- Location: river
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 6,025
6 December 2010
12:3283428#29
I recieved my post today four days worth .My great Uncle was a postman had to travel miles with a bike around country lanes .My father was a milkman and he wou;ld walk miles through snow drifts and often I had to go with him .Thats why im a tough old bird .
It was his living no staying indoors .
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
6 December 2010
12:4883430#30
must have been a very long day for her brian, i shudder to think what time she gets up, my milk is always on the doorstep by 7 a.m. latest.
hope you're right about the yoghurts.
Guest 700- Registered: 11 Jun 2010
- Posts: 2,868
6 December 2010
18:0583453#31
Here is a piece I put on another thread: 'Postmen' in June, along with picture of River postmen...
THE POSTMAN: His portrait is an every-day picture of life, and yet not easy to paint. He is the very incarnation of alacrity, the embodied spirit of regularity and precision. Day by day, hour by hour, he is to be seen traversing with rapid step the limits of his own narrow district. The heavens may smile or frown; revolutions may shake the land; or peace and prosperity gladden its children. Disease may wave its pestilent torch; or sudden calamity sweep away its victims. But the postman is still at his post. A diurnal dispenser of news. A kind of hope in the Queen's livery, visiting every one in turn, and welcomed by all. A messenger of life and of death; of gratified ambition, or disappointed desire; or gracious acxceptance, or harsh refusal. He is still welcome; for his presence, and that which he brings, at least puts an end to the most cruel of human sufferings - uncertainty. -
(Bentley's Miscellany - printed in Dover Telegraph 9 June 1838 p.5 col.2)
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Lincolnshire Born and Bred
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
6 December 2010
18:3783459#32
some eloquent prose there, all true, the telegram and telephone services had not been invented then.
6 December 2010
19:0683468#33
Barry,
You are quite right the post had to get through what ever the weather. I am glad to relate that this is one old postman who is "NOT" spinning in his grave, (Yet)