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POSTING PEOPLE

15th September 1988
Page 35
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Page 35, 15th September 1988 — POSTING PEOPLE
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

As private parcels carriers like TNT id Interlink step up their campaigns for a ice of the strike-hammered Post Office's 1ter monopoly, one corner of the Royal tail network seems far-removed from the ustle of commercial competition and inustrial disputes.

In Cumbria's Duddon Valley, as in over 00 other far-flung areas throughout the TIC, the post bus service, now in its 21st ear, continues to combine the roles of milvan and country bus. Urban busmen, iced with daily jams, irate passengers nd breakneck schedules, might envy ;eorge Wilkinson, who drives a post bus

• Ti the 50Ian route between Broughton nd Cockley Beck.

For Wilkinson's regulars, the Post Bus s a lifeline. Without it they would have no Lecess to public transport — but the post us would be one of the first services on he line if the Post Office were ever orced into an urban price war with the irivate carriers. Many of the post buses are subsidised by local councils, although, as the Post Office must deliver to any address in the UK, it has to run vehicles of some sort on many of these isolated routes anyway.

When post buses were introduced in Wales in 1967, the Post Office simply replaced many smaller vans with minibuses. Wilkinson's is an 11-seat Sherpa, with wire mesh separating passengrs from driver and post. . . though a mail theft in the Duddon Valley hardly seems likely.

The Post Office sees the post bus as a perfect example of its public-service role. If its letters monopoly was lifted and carriers like TNT were allowed to compete, the price of stamps in rural areas would rocket and services like post bus would be threatened, it is claimed.

It takes Wilkinson, 59, four hours to cover his route from Boughton, where he picks up his sack of mail for the day, to Cockley at the other end of the valley. The drystone-dyke-lined country lanes can be treacherous with wet leaves in autumn, ice in winter, lambs in spring, and tourists in summer.

Post buses are actually a boon for many of these summer visitors, who use them to reach hills and walks otherwise inaccessible by public transport.

The Post Office has 170 Post Buses in its fleet. They range from minibus-size Transits and Sherpas, used more in summer when the tourists are about, to estate cars and sturdier Land Rovers.

Wilkinson's regulars, many of them elderly, fear that the service is at risk. Bus deregulation has already made it harder for councils to supply buses to outlying areas: Ribble has withdrawn its twice-a-week service to Ulverston.

The Post Office says the idea behind the buses is simple and cost effective: "With public services in rural areas steadily shrinking, why not employ dual-purpose mail and passenger vans to help fill the gap?" It is pressing its case hard, talking to the media and countryside pressure groups — but it would be wrong to think that the Post Office runs its post buses out of altruism.

Most of them actually earn money, bearing in mind that they attract local council subsidies and that the Post Office would be running vans anyway.

In the Duddon Valley Wilkinson seems far removed from such concerns. He loves the isolation, the splendid scenery and the changing seasons. Sometimes, he says, "I thank God I can see".

After 23 years on the job, Wilkinson is more than local postie or bus driver to his regulars.

He is a friend; a rural social worker, buying groceries for housebound old ladies, collecting prescriptions and delivering the parish magazine. He knows and chats to everyone he meets on his daily run, near where the television series Postman Pat setting is based. "If you didn't they'd think you queer," he says.

Broughton in Furness is a small marke town, with a few shops and a square witl a war memorial. It is here, in the big metropolis, that Wilkinson reports first thing for his mail.

He used to make the run to Ulpha on a push bike, but the Post Office stopped that when one postman fell off on ice and was killed. Several dangerous inclines — Bobbin Mill Hill and Dry Hall Hill among them — pepper his route.

At Ulpha he calls into the local post office — one of the smallest in Britain — where there is barely room for more thar one customer to stand. Then there is Dunnerdale and Seathwaite, before he finishes in GocIdey Beck. His driving skill are needed to squeeze past a brokendown Dutch camper van blocking a single track road.

Wilkinson's oddest passenger was a sic sheep. Its owner's car had broken down and he had to take the off-colour animal t the vet in town. It was bending the rules but for Wilkinson it was hard not to oblige.

Post Bus regulars have been at the worst end of the current postal dispute – most of them having to do without post and transport. Many elderly people in the area have had no way of travelling to shops to get vital supplies.

In areas like the north of Scotland and the Hebrides, where most of the Post Buses are based, the effects of the strike have been hardest felt. For Post Bus driN ers, for whom personal contact with the customer is so important, going on strike must have been difficult.

Murclo Morrison

Tags

Organisations: Post Office
People: Wilkinson

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