Post office offers nonsense verse not nursery rhymes

The Grand Old Duke of York may have gone on some pretty pointless army exercises up and down hills, but give him his due, at least he made the effort to get out and stretch his legs. Not so our hapless overpaid friends at the Post Office headquarters, who wouldn't know a steep incline unless it was spoon fed to them in a Power Point presentation.

While branches up and down the country are squeezed out of existence the Post Office top brass remain firmly seated in their comfy leather chairs back in London. Take my latest visit to the historic city of Lincoln as point in case. Now I am just one single individual - not some overmanned public service - but still find time to get out and visit branches. After all, it is the only way you will find out what is really going on.

I huffed and puffed my way up the steep cobbled streets of aptly named Steep Hill to reach my target destination of Bailgate post office from Lincoln city centre branch. According to Post Office literature it was only half a mile between these branches 'along level terrain'.

Yet the elderly and disabled people I passed on this stiff hike did not share the humour of this bad Post Office joke. After 500 leaflets had been handed out the Post Office finally listened to the howls of protest and admitted to making the gaff - though offered no apology.

The Post Office, it seems, has finally accepted the world is not entirely flat. The mistake happened because no one drawing up the closure plans had ever even bothered to visit the branch.

Yet the crux of the matter is that if this branch shuts the community will be left abandoned, as many customers do not have the army fitness to march down and up this seriously steep hill. So has the correction changed the status of a post office already earmarked for the axe? Not one jot. No decision maker has even bothered to visit the branch.

The Post Office may not be top material for nursery rhymes but it offers us excellent nonsense verse.

Toby Walne, Travels With Toby, Financial Mail on Sunday

>> Save our post offices
>> How can the post office say a hill is flat

Comments

[Onnalee Cubitt]

Hi Toby,

You are doing a great job but I fear we are hitting our heads against a brick wall. My closest Post Office is in Old Basing, Basingstoke Hampshire. It is a thriving Post Office. It has been selected for closure. We organised petitions as part of our fightback since we had been advised this was a consultation process. Our MP, Maria Miller, has been chasing the Post Office since the announcements requesting them to provide her/us with the prescribed criteria they have used to select Old Basing and other Post Offices in her constituency.
We have had NO RESPONSE to repeated requests. I was told by the Head of the Consultation team at the Post Office that petitions are not relevant and will not be taken into account since no one supports any PO closure. The Government has ordered these closures. The only way to have the decision reversed is to demonstrate that the criteria they have applied is incorrect. But we can't do this because the PO will not give our MP the criteria.

This Government decided to remove the rural PO annual grant. I believe it amounted to circa £120m p.a..

There is so much wastage by this Government and £120m is a comparatively small cost.

Crozier's salary to run down a company is a national disgrace.

What we do to up the ante

[Vanessa Braithwaite]

I found the information very interesting as a sub postmistress of a very small office in rural Warwickshire. Yes I do the normal everyday postal duties along with running the shop (a convenience store) with my husband. We do not think the shop will be viable if the PO closes down. But if we are forced to close who will help the older folk in the way we do? Do home deliveries, fix someone's washing machine when they can't work it, find a kitten for a lonely old lady, jump start the odd match making, supporting all the local organisations with fund raising the list is too long to print. We aren't just a shop and Post Office we are a way of life. Please visit us a sample what we may lose if the planned closure goes ahead.