The magnificent Royal Mail

[Katharine]

It is not often that we can really praise the Royal Mail, here is one time that we can!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/south_west/6232705.stm

[englishangel]

When I was a student I spent a Christmas sorting post (this may be somewhere else on here) with 9 guys, I shouldn't have been there because a) I was under 21 and b) I was female but there we are.

The boys did most of the sorting while I sat there with a postcode book and a vivid imagination directing post to

Elton John
A big House
somewhere near Windsor.

Mount Pleasant (the largest London sorting office) was overwhelmed so we were sorting their post and I had one letter that was addressed to East London RSA which for those who don'tknow is Republic of South Africa, so that was a long way from home.

[Katharine]

Mount Pleasant (the largest London sorting office) was overwhelmed so we were sorting their post and I had one letter that was addressed to East London RSA which for those who don'tknow is Republic of South Africa, so that was a long way from home.

At one stage we lived in a town called Cape Coast in Ghana. If our correspondents decided that the address was incomplete without West Africa, it usually went via Cape Town! Letters with Ghana as the last line of the address arrived far more quickly.

[icomefromalanddownunder]

When I was a student I spent a Christmas sorting post (this may be somewhere else on here) with 9 guys, I shouldn't have been there because a) I was under 21 and b) I was female but there we are.

The boys did most of the sorting while I sat there with a postcode book and a vivid imagination directing post to

Elton John
A big House
somewhere near Windsor.

Mount Pleasant (the largest London sorting office) was overwhelmed so we were sorting their post and I had one letter that was addressed to East London RSA which for those who don'tknow is Republic of South Africa, so that was a long way from home.

I delivered Christmas post when I was at Uni - boy, was I fit by the end of it.

For a while some of our post was coming to Adelaide via South Africa, but it's not only Royal Mail employees who have a poor knowledge of geography. For some reason I rang the British High Commission in Sydney with a question about Kuala Lumpur and had to tell the person (Pom, not Aussie) that I was speaking to where KL is.

[Mrs C.]

I too worked for the post in my Christmas holidays while at uni - I remember the first year, having collected my sack of mail, being transported in the back of a windowless van to a part of town I`d never set foot in before , told to be back by 11 for the next lot and then just left to get on with it, having no idea of the road names - not even the one I was on. Did i panic a bit? YES! Somehow I did the round, and managed to find a bus to get me back to the sorting office , swearing never to return - but I did - and in fact did it a couple more years and enjoyed it!

[jhopgood]

I did the post one year at Eltham, where the Post Office has now been turned into a restaurant.
On my second day the full time workers went on strike because apparently, we students were working too fast. We had to get in at some unearthly hour and then wait until the post was sorted before we could take it and go out. Sorting into pigeon holes is pretty easy, so we helped and got out earlier, meaning that we could get two rounds done and be home by mid afternoon. Our helping with the sorting meant that no overtime was available, hence the strike.
I travelled on my bike after I found that I was supposed to pay my bus fare. Experience with a heavy bag on a paper round meant this was no problem. My round was on what we called "the other estate" and finished about 5 minutes from my home.
The only exciting bit was judging when to shove the letters through the letter box when there is a bouncing, barking dog on the other side. Flip and wait, pushing the cards in when the dog was returning to earth, was my tactic.

[jtaylor]

I had a similar experience with a paper-round.

I have to confess though that I used to hold the newspapers half-way through the letter box, allowing the dog on the other side to rip it to pieces as it fought me for it.....I had the rather vain hope that this might train the owners to keep the dog away from the front door, to save the poor paper boy from being scared half to death by a dog ripping the paper from their hand.
The tactic didn't appear to work, and I wonder whether the owners ever managed to read a single page of the paper after their dog at torn it to shreds!

[blondie95]

well the royal mail here don't like to deliver post everyday, we go 3/4 days with none then get a huge pile! I don't think everyone could have timed their post to us for arrival on one day!