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The Postie Notes by Mark Gilbert
There are many sayings or idioms people use when different “life challenges” arise, “You’ll be stronger for the experience”, “You’ve been very lucky”, “Don’t count your chickens”, “You never know what’s on the next page”, etc. I’m sure we all have our favourite, but the one I thought of recently was, “Easy come, easy go”. I’ll tell you why.
When Royal Mail was privatised in 2013, all staff were given some free shares and also able to purchase others at a beneficial rate. There were restrictions on the sale of the free shares, with Income Tax and National Insurance implications if you sold them early.
The free shares set a lot of Posties and their families dreaming of what they would spend their windfall on after the qualifying period, as the initial amount was valued at around £3000. And there were more to follow. Also, there was a share dividend paid out at regular intervals.
There was a bit of a downside when it came to the qualifying period ending, whereby staff could lock into a form of group sale and had to sell at the share price on a certain date.
This looked quite good to start with, but just before the share sale date Royal Mail put out a profit warning and the share price plunged, causing the Posties who were locked in to lose a large amount of what they were expecting. I was lucky, as I wasn’t happy with the period of lock in, so I still had my shares.
So, life went on, we had a pandemic, whereby parcel delivery went through the roof, which after a good couple of years helped the share price to rise again, and earlier this year the price was almost back up to its pre-plunge high, so I sold my shares and had plans to use the funds towards a couple of home improvements. But life doesn’t always happen as we plan it… cue animal-related incidents!
On my deep rural Postie round I encounter lots of beasties wanting to get close to my van – sheep, scatty lambs, cows, lovelorn cock pheasants that seem to like the red colour, buzzards with only an eye for the roadkill, more deer than you could shake a stick at, and Border collies!
Unfortunately, in the last year I had a too-close encounter with a hind between Badanloch and Kinbrace, and a working Border collie in Strathnaver. The hind wasn’t very lucky, but amazingly the Border collie walked away.
Royal Mail operate a “Driver Improvement Course” after such incidents, and I got to attend mine in mid-September. I attended with an open mind but failed the eyesight test of reading a number plate from 20.5 yards! I had my contact lenses in and just couldn’t quite focus due to a slight blur in my right eye. I knew I had developing cataracts and put the failure down to them.
I was immediately taken off driving for Royal Mail, which is a serious issue in such a remote area, but with help from my colleagues, Paul, Pete, James and Colin at Bettyhill, we adapted the local deliveries and since then I have been doing a walking delivery with my golf trolley around Bettyhill. I’ve made new acquaintances and feel quite fit after walking the hills of Bettyhill.
In the meantime, I had an emergency appointment with my optician in Inverness, who said he couldn’t improve my eyesight further and, although my sight is still legal to drive with my glasses, I needed to be referred for cataract surgery.
There were two options, NHS with a minimum 12-month waiting list, or private, which could happen very quickly. Because of my age and location, and as I want to do my little job for as long as possible, I have chosen the private surgery, and by the time you read this I will have had both of my eyes corrected.
My consultant in Aberdeen said that I will be able to see as far as I want to after the surgery and that, as I am self-funding the procedure, he can get me there within weeks. This means that to continue my employment with Royal Mail I will be funding my surgery with the proceeds (and quite a bit more) of my Royal Mail shares!
- Mark Gilbert works as a postman in Bettyhill.
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