Rural Mail?

 

We country dwellers rely on the postal service certainly no less than our urban counterparts and arguably rather more.

The odd republican may object to the anachronistic title of Royal Mail,  but those on the left (and there are some hereabouts) rejoice that one public service at least remains wholly in national ownership.

As did I did until a Saturday morning trip to my local Post Office a week or so back.

Up until a decade ago this would have meant a half mile walk up the hill to the local shop in our hamlet.  But the shop and its post office counter closed and the shopkeeper now runs a rather more profitable business providing chiropody services.

A decade before that, in the main village a mile further on, the fine weather-boarded Georgian building on the village green that had been home to the local Post Office for generations was closed and sold to a speculative developer.

So now it’s a five mile drive to the nearest town.  But at least here is a proper establishment pretending to be nothing other than a post office. With a proper post mistress (is there a gender neutral term?) who, eventually, turned her attention to me after finishing a lengthy conversation with the previous customer.

I put my small package on the scales and enquired casually what time the next collection was.   “Just gone” sad she, glancing at the clock which declared it was  just a smidgen after 10.35.  AM . “He was on time today” she said with a hint of either pride or malice.  It was difficult to tell which.  And the collection after that?  “Monday. 5.00”.

Now I knew we’d lost our Sunday collection some time ago but I had, perhaps naively, thought that the Saturday pick-up might be towards the end of the day.  Or at very least noon.  When I dared moot this, the response was swift, a shade patronising, and somewhat tautologous. “This isn’t the city. We’re in the country here”.

So I asked if  there was a later collection anywhere near-by.  She told me there might be.  In Cranbrook. Eight miles further away.  But she wasn’t sure.  Could she possibly call Cranbrook and ask?  No.  Sorry. She didn’t have the number.  Why didn’t I just drive over there?  Because I didn’t want a 16 mile round trip with no guarantee that the post wouldn’t have gone from there too. “You could call the Royal Mail information line” she said, helpfully.  And the number?  No, she didn’t have that but I could surely look it up in the phone book.

So I did, when I got home. And called it. And after the obligatory lengthy recorded message about customer service, I was told the help line was not available on a Saturday. Or a Sunday.  And search as I might there appeared nowhere on the website which gave details of collection times.  Anywhere in the country,  let alone in my area of darkest Kent.

So the small package with its first class stamp that I’d bought for 52p (nearly 10/6d) in order to ensure it was delivered by Monday morning would now not even start its journey until the only collection on Monday. At 5.00 in the afternoon.

Maybe, I reflected, the Royal Mail just simply no longer deserves its monopoly.  And like the telephone service before, might actually become a service if privatised.  But I hardly dare say so round here.  In case I’m mistaken for a Tory.