I’ve reached a milestone birthday in good health and with a desire to make the most of every day

The Postie Notes by Mark Gilbert

Well, I’ve had a milestone birthday this year, 70, an age I never thought I’d reach all those years ago when I was working every day, living life to the full, and abusing my body, but here I am, in generally good health and with a desire to make the most of every day.

It seems to have been a whirlwind since my last milestone birthday. My 60th came while I was still in Huddersfield, and I celebrated with all my friends at the Aakash Indian restaurant in Cleckheaton.

The Aakash is housed in a Grade II listed building, formerly a chapel, and was converted in 2001 to become the largest Indian restaurant in the world, claiming to be able to cater for 750 people in one sitting.

Its main business revolves around an all-you-can-eat buffet that attracts folk from very far and wide. My mouth is watering at the thought of the top-quality food they produce.

Anyway, as the last ten years have shown, life in the far north is a world away from life in the south, so subsequent birthdays and this milestone have been celebrated very differently.

I’ve received lots of cards and gifts in the post and also some from local folk who have learnt when my day is, a day I used to share with Prince Charles, now King Charles III, but now he has two birthdays, whereas I’m very happy to have just one.

The other royal link is that I started working for Royal Mail on the birthday of his mother, Queen Elizabeth – what a coincidence!

When I was born in 1954, a first-class stamp cost 3d, and now it’s £1.65, but now the postal service is up against numerous ways to send greetings to someone, such as social media, emails, text messages, WhatsApp, and greeting services such as Moon Pig, Funky Pigeon.com, or similar.

When I told a friend that I had received 25 cards, he asked if any of them were from the above companies. I said no; they were all handwritten. He said that I was lucky because all his cards were from greeting companies, and he felt that it was a bit of a cheat on the people who sent them, and not very personal either, because although they’d gone to the trouble of getting it sent, they could basically set up a reminder with the company and just click and pay every year to have their card sent.

I said that at least he’d got a card, but he said that they hadn’t actually gone to the trouble of buying a card, writing the greeting and envelope, putting a stamp on it, and posting it; it had all been done by machine.

I smiled wryly at one of the senders of a card because they’d put an old stamp on it, not a barcode like they have now, but it had escaped the surcharge. The smile was mainly because it was from a retired postmaster.

One of my cards was from a good friend, fellow Scorpio, fellow postie, fellow West Ham fan, Robbie Pogson, who runs the Caller’s Office (parcel collect) at the Slaithwaite Delivery Office.

Inside the card was a message saying, “I hope you like the photos of the four West Ham boys who won the World Cup.” Well, there were three old “cigarette cards” of Bobby Moore, Martin Peters, and Geoff Hurst, who played in the final in 1966, probably worth a few quid now, but the fourth boy was a Polaroid picture of a young Robbie Pogson in his West Ham shirt. Good boy, very clever and thoughtful.

Mark Gilbert is a postman based at Bettyhill.

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