Postman

Freddie was barking downstairs. That's Freddie the dog I must make clear.  He is a wonder at ensuring no-one approaches the door, the back yard, or even passes the front of the house and has the audacity to linger for a moment without Freddie warning them of his presence.

Just after noon he was at it.  With the folks downstairs being at work I looked out to see if it was the postman.  In fact it was the parcel postman, Zac, who had parked at our door, indicating a delivery for the new neighbour.  

Over the three years she dwelt in No 5, I became quite used to receiving packets for Angelika.  The new lass is now doing the same thing, also without mentioning things are arriving.  I wondered what kind of people they would be, it appears to be two young women, but I only ever see one, and I asked one of the Kirk to pray about the neighbours.  The next evening she knocked on my door and presented me with a couple of cakes.  It appears the agent had not bothered to explain where the electric meters are, nor I suspect many other things.  However, politely refusing the cakes while not returning them I indicated what she must do.  All heart me, and all heart and fattened arteries also now.

Anyway, a box arrived and I took it in.  Zac knew I would anyway, and he chatted re the joy of Royal Mail.  After a year or more of strikes, now resolved, little has changed.  All that has been done is to push any further squabbles into the future for Labour to handle badly.  

I enquired re the second, bent and twisted birthday card, that came through the door the other day.  He indicated a young postman, one who has been around for three years or so, is quite useless, and even when put on difficult 'walks' continues to be useless, but will not resign.  It appears he does not have the dedication to the job that is required.  Clearly subtle tactics have been used, but subtlety is not for this young man, it may be an idea to make him a manager!  

Roger, the proper postman, is off sick.  This makes little difference as he has spent much of the time on the 'walk' off sick.  The young lad is doing it now, possibly regularly, possibly only occasionally.  Even Roger was better than this.

I have some good memories as a postman.  The majority of the men were good to work with, there was little strife, only occasional outbursts.  This is good among 100 or so men.  I trusted them all, never expecting any to be found stealing, though one or two avoided some work.  The banter, usually racist in my opinion, against me I still miss.  I of course never said anything to upset them.  When retired the work can be missed, the banter with good men is always missed.

Trying a new exercise regime this week.  The pain appears to indicate it is working.  At least that is what they all say.  I'm not so sure myself.  Losing weight, eating better, exercising differently, all will go into making me a super 11 stone muscle bound hunk, well, in a month or so I will certainly be a hunk, or is that hulk?

Tuesday Scream!

I slept badly.

Awake every hour or near enough.

Too hot, too cold, too tired, too awake, on and on it went.

I stumbled up around 7 am, scampered unwillingly to Sainsburys masked like a bank robber, though they usually are not struggling to breathe or blinded by steam on the glasses.  Hurried back to find the laptop dying.

The adaptor wire helpfully broke meaning no power was entering and the battery was soon running out.

This meant a struggle to find a replacement, and an even greater struggle to get the old laptop, slow and difficult, to work.

By means of EBay I may have a replacement arriving soon...maybe, if it is the right one. Until then I must make do with this useless old one.

Herein the day got worse.

Not having been used since my failed Linux experiment naturally the beast was in a huff.

Nothing would work.

Eventually it worked but everything had to begin again.

Everything slowly, oh soooo sloooowly began to begin again.

It was at this point I remembered how sailors swore...

All day I played with browsers, downloaded, slowly, the required items, slowly got them to work slowly and often suggested to Toshiba what they could do with this laptop.  They did not answer.

By afternoon I not only had much of it working I even found the cricket, which I canny watch as I am watching things appear, often uninvited, onto the screen.  

Tired, weary, unable to sleep it off as I expected the workmen to knock and the postie to bring a packet.

She arrived eventually, just on one O'clock.  As she now works only three days she can survive the system, it is however not a good one.  Poor women needs an easy round, this once was, I did it myself, but changes, absurd changes, make the posties life hard.  Management, driven by paper wielding  non-posties in offices far away do not provide a service as in days of yore.   Blood from stone Tory style instead.  We must all expect more such work practices to abound under this government.

Now I comprehend that a Syrian women, endangered in a Turkish tented refugee camp with her children while her man abandons her to make his way to fame and fortune in Europe has more reasons to scream than I have.  I really do understand.  However, early this morning I was not understanding much, least of all how to get this brute to work.  

I wonder what fun lies ahead tomorrow... 

A Walk in the Sunshine

Wigan

The bright and almost warm sunshine this afternoon reminded me of my time as a postman walking the streets in summer, on a bike!  Always the bets way to walk the streets.  At that time the daft new rules had been brought in, the Union rolling over and submitting to the bosses in their usual manner, rules that changed this pleasant but hard job into a hard and unpleasant routine for many.
Delivering early in the sun is great.  The cats all greet you, imagining you will open the door and feed them, instead you speak to them, post the mail and turn away.  The cats then possess an expression that would make Maggie Thatcher tremble!  At some times of the year the bushes in the gardens would be covered in what looks like thin white silk.  This turns out to be spiders webs about a foot or so across, often a dozen or more on a bush.  The morning dew added a glint in the sun to these, although difficult to photograph properly I find.  The dew on lavender plants heightening the fragrance as you brush past the stalks leaning over the pathways.  Lavender is a common plant in this area, the long purple rows can be seen on many farms. The scent wafted around as I passed but the cats did not appear to care.

In those days I often met with mothers taking the brats to school.  On on occasion I rang the bell just as mum was yelling "Get down here this minute! I said NOW! not tomorrow!"  She opened the bell somewhat sheepishly realising I must have overheard.  "Don't worry lass," Says I, "Every other house down the road is doing exactly the same."  Indeed they were.  The house where a child, or children, trotted cheerfully and quickly off to school does not exist.  Some parents believe others have an easy time with their kids, they are wrong!  All children are brats!  As I returned from a house further along the family were now acting out 'happiness and obedience' in the same style all the other mums dragging their brood to primary school were.   Kids often look out for the postman.  On occasions wee George will be straining to see the postman, meaning the regular man will hesitate before moving on so as to wave to the boy.  This will continue for several days and suddenly stop.  Wee George has lost interest and possibly has another to wave to.   

Postmen of course do not deliver to you.  Postmen deliver to an address.  No 24 is what matters, not Mrs Smith.  Postmen sign the Secrets Act because the mail belongs to 'Her Majesty the English Queen,' although she never makes any attempt to deliver it herself.  So much for sex equality!  What is delivered is none of the postie's business, he just carries the stuff, and if he discovers what is being sent, from whom and to whom, he cannot pass on such information to anyone, even the police.  Any legitimate authority must go through the proper channels if required.  Naturally it is not difficult to guess what many people (called 'customers today') are receiving  however few will really care.  Nosiness has its limits, especially when there are several more sacks of mail to get through.  It is customary for postmen to act natural with 'customers' in spite of the sex machines, interesting pills, and other legal implements that show through badly packaged mail.  

People are strange.  Most I met around here were sensible enough, boringly normal for the most part, but occasionally something will arise.  One postman in Chelmsford was apparently met by a naked women (age not known) as he desired a signature for an item.  He was later informed by a policeman friend that he could have been done as a 'peeping tom' for that!  I doubt he would have been.  I might have waited until she signed and suggested "You'd better put some clothes on lass, they will think he wants you for your money!"
The nearest I got was a young lass in her underwear who possibly expected the parcel van driver. She certainly was disappointed to see me.  I managed not to suggest that a diet would help her love life.  But only just.  

Ah memories.  Memories are of course better than the pain in the knees, the weight of the mail, the unfortunate management, the rain, the hail, the snow and on occasion the sunshine.  One year some folks were claiming it was too hot!  Stupid men!  These were the ones who sit in a little van going around the villages.  In between stops for coffee from friendly farmers daughters and one or two wives, something we 'townies' never got, the sun shining through the windscreen must have made life difficult for them on their 300 drops.  I had 500 at least!!!  Bah!  Well it is a good job I was never one to complain, as there were reasons to.  Being a postman, on the good days, was once a very enjoyable job, and I had hoped to continue this until I retired.  Maybe of course the knee has saved me many troubles as I do not think I would enjoy the confused and overworked life such men endure today.  Yes I know what you are saying, women are postmen also.  However in those uniforms it was difficult to tell!

Old-Pictures

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Rotyal Mail Dispute

The 'Daily Mail' and other right wing press, are going full out in attacking the striking postmen. This is no surprise. For many years government, both parties, have wanted rid of the Royal Mail. On top of this an EU directive forced 'competition' on to them and allowed 'TNT' and 'Deutche Post' to operate parcel delivery in the UK. They were also allowed to take mail, at cheaper rates than RM, and dump it on Royal Mail to deliver. That's right, they collect mail from the big companies, and a few small ones, charge them less than Royal Mail do, and then give it to RM to deliver for them. When I was a postman, three years ago, it cost RM 13 pence to deliver mail. Privatised companies paid RM only 12,5 pence per letter, a profit of 0.5 pence per letter! It is no wonder RM loses money!

While complaining they are losing mail the postman is actually delivering much more than before. Not only the normal mail, but the increase coming from those using the private companies means the postman's bag is bigger than ever. The pressure from above is such that while the mailman has three and a half hours to actually deliver his sorted mail, he spends half his day sorting the stuff by hand first of course, he actually needs four to five hours to deliver it. Royal Mail will NOT pay overtime for this! Add to this the increase in packages carried by the postman, 'E-Bay' and others causing this, the number of bags he has to deal with has doubled, and this means running around collecting the things, all adding to his time frame. Many complain the postman does not wait while knocking at the door, although this is often more to their slowness at answering! I have watched a woman wander about the house, knowing I am standing there, fixing her hair before she answered! "I ONLY HAVE FIVE HUNDRED OTHERS TO THINK OF BITCH GET A MOVE ON!" Yet the postie is the one in the wrong? Far too many display the normal human failure of thinking the postman is a servant, their servant, who should wait on them. They forget he may be a servant, but he is not servile! So give what you wish to receive.

Even when the management at a sorting office know their job the men at the top are working to an agenda designed to paint the postmen as the 'bad guys.' This is clearly seen in the message given through the press. The vast amounts of 'delayed mail' that lies undelivered in sorting offices (well the main offices actually) is blamed on industrial action. What is not said is that much of this is deliberately put aside in an effort to cast blame. Other areas will not allow this mail to be delivered as they refuse to pay for the men to do overtime. The increased pressure to remove all the full time, trained, postmen, and replace them with part time casuals, untrained and unfamiliar with the 'walks' they are given, saves RM cash but ensures mail delivery is harmed. This style of delivery is that used by TNT and others in Belgium, Germany and Holland. Their the mail is a mess in many areas, industrial conflict abounds, and posting a letter is vastly more expensive than in the UK.

Clearly the government wishes to save the 'taxpayer' money by selling off Royal Mail. This means that in the long term prices will increase, Lands End to John O' Groats next day delivery, all for 32 pence, will disappear, and the normal postman who is aware of your comings and goings (and who has signed the official secrets act by the way) will no longer exist. By saving the 'taxpayer,' or should I say 'Daily Mail' reader, a few pence in tax a year this policy will increase the cost of his mail, and business costs which will rebound on him, exorbitantly! They did this with Electric, Water, British Rail, the buses and of course Gas! All utilities that once served the nation, and while they were badly run and needed modernised they did not rip folks off and make billions in profits for the few! While some posties were not keen on work, I can think of three in particular, the majority just get on with the job. Today they are being badly treated by a management that cares nothing for them, the service, or anything but money! They should care about that, Crosier is taking millions each year for his three day week! The service has degraded badly in the past couple of years through this mismanagement. Time to renationalise the utilities, and support the postmen's efforts to keep the service element of Royal Mail. Bring back Joseph Chamberlain!