Mailman Bring Me No More Blues ... 1978.

With a good friend, a driver from the Northampton Office, 'Timmy Trauma' we called him. He was so laid back, he'd fall over. Used to crack me up. Great character.

 1978 

The year was kicked off with a trip to Chelsea to see Liverpool play in the F.A.Cup Third Round. I had by now traded in my 1600E for a Hillman Minx. Loved the car, it was lovely to drive, only trouble was, it was a complete rust box! Which I didn’t realise until I had to change a headlamp. The casing caved in, I was distraught. When would I ever get a decent car? If the rust was bad enough when I went down to London with Pat, Dennis and Knocker it would prove to be its final journey. Blue smoke belched out of the exhaust when we were on the M1 and an emergency stop was called for at Newport Pagnell Services. A gallon of oil was poured in and away we went. We got as far as Toddington Services near Luton and another gallon of oil was purchased to try and coax the car to get us to Chelsea on time. We did make it, parked up, and by the end of the game we wished we hadn’t bothered. Liverpool lost 4-2! Miserable day it was turning out to be. It was with resignation we traipsed home, with the help of more gallons of oil, defeated and dejected. We limped home, I parked the Minx in the car park by the garages across the road from our house and there the Minx stayed until it made its final journey to Seaton Scrapyard. 

An ignominious beginning to 1978 it was but by the end of the year life had changed in so many ways it was hard to believe. We didn’t have any preconceived ideas or thoughts of how things were going to develop but twelve months later we had a baby, a new car, I had changed my job, we were married, we had moved. A busy year.

I was getting more disillusioned and worried about what the future had in store for us, fears brought on by the impending birth of our first child in May. Was I going to be stuck in the Tubeworks for the rest of my days? Although what I didn’t realise, or took much notice of, was the rumours beginning to circulate about the closure of Corby Steelworks. Then one day out of the blue whilst sitting having a coffee prior to getting ready to go to work on backshift, brother in law Bill called in to collect my pools coupon. Bill was an agent, a job he had taken up since he had been in the Post Office for five years. He caught me feeling really pissed off. “Do you fancy a job in the Post Office?” he asked. I’d never give it a thought. A postman! Bill was full of it, he was very much like me, bit of a rambler, had had numerous jobs until he became a postie. That alone made me think. If Bill was loving it, there must be something in it. He extolled the virtues of the job. ‘You start at five which is a bit of a drag but you soon get used to it, once you’re out there’s nobody on your shoulder, checking on you or anything, you’re out in the fresh air, you’re on your own.. nobody bothers you.. ‘ that immediately grabbed my attention. And then ‘You’re finished virtually every day by 11 0’clock.’ 

Only downsides were that it was a six day week, money wasn’t great and you needed a job on the side to supplement your wages, taxi work, bar work,  door work, Christ I’d been doing this for yonks as it was.  Seemed like a way out for me. I asked Bill, or Willie as I was soon to discover they all called him, to get me an application form. It was to change my life and I have Bill to thank for that. It was a move I would never regret.

Long before Boris's initiative, many people thought I was working from home. Carly posing alongside the '600' whilst I took a break before heading off to Avon for another collection.

Walking into the Rockingham Road Sorting Office was like stepping back in time. The Post Office back then appeared almost Victorian. This could have been 1878 instead of 1978. Amusing and amazing at the same time. 

I was here along with two other guys for an initiative test, better described as an ‘idiot test’. To fail, I was assured, was almost an impossibility. Example; Three trees blowing in the wind - one blowing in the opposite direction to the other two. Tick which one you think is the odd one. Fuck me. An infant couldn’t get that one wrong!

As it turned out, whoever obtained the most marks, gained in seniority. Which was explained rather quaintly when Mick Scott asked Bob Lochore the union man on how it was that I and the other recruit Ian Turner were ahead of him on the list. “Is it something to do with that idiot test?” Mick asked. “Yes, it was” Said Bob, “You came last!”  

Another nice surprise was finding my old mate Dick working there. That helped me to ease in to the ways and whims of the Royal Mail. Turns out Dick had started in the September before me. 

The first week was spent in doors, shuffling through a cardboard box of postcards, each one with the address of every dwelling and factory unit in the town and surrounding villages. Postman Alec Grieg was our tutor. A quiet spoken, mild mannered articulate Scotsman, unusual in a town of belligerent Jocks! The cards were to be sorted into the appropriate pigeon holes and we had to reach a standard of around 500 cards every quarter of an hour before we were considered qualified. Three days of boring torturous monotony ensued. The task was done in the relative peace and quiet of the sorting office following the second delivery. ‘Relative’ that is until the afternoon when PHG George Downs interrupted our concentration barking out orders army style – “head down, keep sorting, don’t talk and sort at the same time!” George was very much old school, and a right piss taker. Christ, this really was like being in the bloody army. I half expected to see three stripes on George’s arm! Alec enjoyed the crack, seen and must have heard it a thousand times! PHG was another quirk synonymous with the Royal Mail. They loved their abbreviations! PHG stood for Postman Higher Grade, indicating a slightly more serious role in the office, and a slightly Higher wage. The PHG worked in a cage like room which resembled a prison cell where the Special Delivery Mail and other high security items were distributed to the postmen. No one, but no one, was allowed entry! The PHG was also the officer in charge when no other higher authority was available. Mainly on the afternoon shift. 

Head of operations in the Post Office was still the Postmaster back then. A figurehead with status equal to that of magistrate, police inspector, an upstanding pillar of the community. Respected. Corby’s Postmaster was Mr. Sidey who walked around the office, which he only rarely deigned to inspect, with an air of self importance and no intention of acknowledging or talking to anyone, looking down his long nose. Basically, a snob.

When he did appear, he revelled in a hush suddenly descending in the office from the postmen sorting the mail. I found it amusing. This was like a red rag to a bull to me. 

The Sorting Office was full of characters and preoccupied with quirks right out of a comic book. Timetables and working hours were based on the running of the railways. Why some rounds in the office started at 5.03 and finished at 12.25 was to the layman, absurd, and a complete mystery. It was a tradition harking back to the days of W.H. Auden’s ‘Night Mail’. To gain employment in the Post Office, one either had to have a military background, ex army, navy apparently, or know someone already working there, family being a bonus. Which is how I got in!

Sidey’s two generals, or Inspectors as they were called were Frank Tansey and Bernard Lenton. They were a sideshow themselves. Frank had a harelip which left him with a lisp. He was a stickler for the rules and was intent on not letting anyone away with anything. Signing on five minutes late one morning and thinking I'd got away with it by scrawling 5am, Frank came up behind me half an hour later and asked accusingly over my shoulder; 'what time did you get here this morning?' 'Five o'clock Frank' I said as sincerely as I could. 'No you didn't!' came the riposte, 'It was five past five! next time make sure you sign on at the right time you get here!' Rudy hell I thought to myself. And I sneaked a look at the timesheet afterwards and sure enough, Frank had marked me down in red ink as late. He must have relished it! Christ almighty I thought to myself. 

Frank was also in charge of, amongst other things, dealing with such things as the post bikes. I was told that on the Westfields round I was on, I should have a bike and went to ask Frank if this was right. "I'll get you one tomorrow' he said grumpily. He did. Next morning, cycling up Rockingham Road on this contraption, it was a real struggle. Just as I was nearing the top of the hill, the pedals snapped and my bollocks hit the crossbar causing me no end of pain. Counting them first, I wheeled the bike back to the office, raging. "That bike is a heap of shite!" I yelled at Frank. He looked up at me from his desk, "you get an extra 48p a week maintenance on that bike" he replied, dismissingly. I wasn't having that. I repeated "the bike is a heap of crap, my nuts are aching!" and told him what he could do with it! Unbelievable. I reckoned the thing had been sitting in the basement rusting away for years. Frank thought I was a soft shite. No way!

His partner in crime, Bernard Lenton, travelled from Kettering on a moped and looked for all the world like a resistance man in the war. Bernard was the one to make announcements, which were generally received with much joy and mickey taking. 'Lend me your ears gentleman, bags of hush chaps’, Bernard would bellow. Everybody cracked up every time! If the weather was bad, snow or fog or something, Bernard would announce 'due to the adverse weather conditions gentlemen, book half an hour overtime'. Cheering, whistling and singing would instantaneously burst out. 'For he's a jolly good fellow, for he’s a jolly good fellow…’ Bernard would never see the joke at all, and shuffle back into his office bemused. Frank would be sitting there, face as long as a fiddle, 'bloody barmy, the lot of em''. 

The two were figures of fun but both well liked for their peculiar ways. Bernard also sorted the uniforms out for the new starts. Measuring you up was like a scene out of the Army Game. Inside leg, waist, size of head for the hat. All done swiftly. When the uniforms arrived, often three times too big, it was no use complaining. Bernard actually said; 'it's a bit like the army, you'll grow into it!' As for the hat, well, that swivelled all the way round my head! Hopeless. 

One thing I learned early on was everybody had their role to play which was assigned to what ever delivery you were on. Nothing happened until the van arrived from Kettering with the mail. Then it was all hands on deck. Bernard shouting in military style, 'Bag dragger inners!' Half a dozen postmen would rush out of the door to help the driver unload hundreds of sacks of mail, and drag them into the office. Next would be a group who’s task was of opening the bags and tipping them onto a sorting table. 'Bag tipper uppers!' The bundles of mail were then transported around the racks of pigeon holes where the other postmen waited eagerly to sort the letters into their appropriate rounds. Another group of posties were allocated the packet frames, bags hooked onto a big framework of all the rounds. 

Not everything went to plan all the time. If the Kettering van was late, rumours would start flying around, usually by Ray Moffatt, a short stocky character with a limp, and a bizarre sense of humour; 'train derailment at Coventry', 'pile up on the motorway'. This was Ray's little joke, making sure it was just in earshot of those who were prone to panic. He liked to wind people up. Ken Scott who was nicknamed the Barber on account of him looking like a barbershop singer, Cliff Binley, called CB, an obvious Post office abbreviation, would bite every time. 'Did you hear that?' Ken would say, worried to death. 'We won't get out till half seven!’ 

One morning when the Kettering mail van was twenty minutes late, panic reached fever pitch. Backing onto the dock, a dozen posties darted to the door to drag the mailbags in. I was standing by the packet frame sorting through the packets, using my initiative I thought. It seemed there were plenty of posties getting the mail in. Bernard came over, ranting; 'you should be on bag dragging in!’. Oblivious to the fact that half the postmen were getting in each others way as they unloaded the van. 'There's plenty of guys doing it Bernard' I said. He froze, as if he couldn’t believe his ears. Panic stricken he retorted, pointing over towards the door, 'it's your job! You should be over there on the bag dragging in!' This was obviously a spanner in the works as far as he was concerned. This wasn't in the book. 'I thought I'd use my loaf Bernard and get stuck in sorting these packets out', I explained. I thought he was going to have a seizure. Not wanting to be the cause of a heart attack, I shrugged my shoulders and did as I was told. The relief on Bernard was palpable. Amazing. 

Whilst it was mayhem in the office, one guy would be leaning on his brush surveying the chaos around him. Tim the cleaner. Brigstock born and bred. Nothing seemed to touch him. Or his brush! The crack with Tim was always the same. 'How yer feelin' Tim?' 'Mondayish mate', 'Tuesdayish'. If he wasn't leaning on his brush he was in the locker room studying the horse racing page in the newspaper. Tim always had the knack of looking as if he was hard done by. 'Not enough hours in the day mate', 'don't get paid enough mate'. Tim had Frank and Bernard sized up. They couldn't faze him. Or get him to do anything! Brilliant.

A peculiarity those days was everyone greeting each other by the names of their rounds! Bill Leggett delivered the Ripley Walk round, sorted his mail alongside Bernard Pridmore, a gentleman in the true word from Harringworth, old school, could have been a postman back in the days of Victoria! 'Morning Ripley' Bernard would say. 'Morning High Street' Bill would reply. Crazy. Alongside the pair of them was the court jester, Willie Easton. Taking the Michael out of everyone, making out he was in love with Davy MacMurray, a wee man, a giggling former steward in the Merchant Navy. 'Oh Davy!' Willie would sigh, cuddling up to him. 'Willie!' Davy would respond. Tansey was totally immune to any semblance of a sense of humour. Bollocking Willie all the time, Willie would respond by making out he was bursting into tears, 'Frank, you're always picking on me' whist wiping his eyes with his hankie. This was a madhouse I concluded!

My first winter working for the Royal Mail was during the worst winter for years! Snow a foot deep as I trudged along Tanfields Road. Feeling utterly miserable, snow misting my eyes, hands like blocks of ice, I was walking back down Tanfields towards Westfields Road when I heard a voice cry out, “hey, Postie!” in a rich Glaswegian brogue. Fuck me I thought. Turning around I saw an old woman standing by her gate, some 50 yards or so back. “Christ almighty” I’m thinking, “have I put a card through the wrong door or something!”, “Can’t she put it through her neighbours door herself for fuck's sake!” I walked back, cursing, calling her everything under my breath. “Here, postie” she said. She handed me a envelope. “Happy Christmas”. Inside was a fiver! My first Christmas tip! And my last as it happened, but there you go. I was dumbstruck. “Thank you” I said, feeling totally humbled. She was standing there in the snow, shivering. “Merry Christmas to you too’ I replied, feeling absolutely guilty after what I’d been calling her. Felt terrible. What a lovely old lady!

Old habits die hard. Opening the box on top of Snowdon in 2014