Post Office Closings

 Hi there

Last week it was announced that postal deliveries as we know them are going to be phased out.  No more Post Office posties delivering our mail. Outside couriers will be contracted.  How long will it be, I wonder, before our letter boxes will become surplus and we'll have to trudge to some communal space to pick up our mail?  Or ... more likely, mail deliveries will be stopped completely.

I still have friends who write letters and so I have to write letters in return. I used to love watching Regency dramas where the lady of the house would write a letter to a friend across town and then summon her maid to hand deliver the missive.  Wouldn't this be neat?  Of course, as several of my writing friends are overseas; I dont really think a maid would be happy about delivering my letters, especially as she would have to be back at the mansion before tea to arrange my hair, set out my evening clothes, and darn my stockings.

We all knew the death knell had started when several years back we switched to only getting mail deliveries three days a week, instead of the usual six.  Uh-oh,...

My father worked his entire working life for the General Post Office, here in New Zealand.  Way before I was born he used to sort letters, on the overnight passsenger train heading from Wellington to Auckland.  And back again.

As Dad's evening train pulled out from the station, he was inside the post office carriage frantically sorting letters.  I think mail bags were thrown out and other bags brought in at various stops.  After about four or five hours the steam train reached the halfway stop of the country village of Taihape. Passengers leapt out to buy their cups of tea, buns, sausage rolls and sandwiches. They only had about thirty minutes to complete their buying.  The cups, saucers and plates were expected to be left on the train to be collected and later returned to Taihape.  Many houses around the country ended up with New Zealand Railway crockery in their cupboards.  The same went for the pillows you rented out in Wellington and handed in on arrival in Auckland some 12 hours later.

Dad left the train in Taihape.  He transferred to the train coming from Auckland and went back to sorting letters as this train chugged its way to Wellington.

above: stock photo.  steam train of the time

I so remember travelling in train carriages similar to the above photo.  My family travelled many times to and from Auckland.  I would lower the top narrow window and try to stick my head out.  The sooty steam would get in my eyes.  When the train turned a corner there was always a glorious view of the engine chug-chugging along, steam blowing from its stack.