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By Susan Lee
I don’t know what your postie is like but ours is smashing. Rain or shine he’s there tramping up the street, in shorts in summer, bundled up in a big coat when there’s frost on the ground, delivering our mail.
If I see him walking by, there’s usually a cheery wave through the window while at the door there’s always a joke – I say something I think is funny about brown envelopes and bills and he laughs like it’s the first time he’s heard that one. We slip him a few quid at Christmas.
He goes out of his way to keep an eye on elderly neighbours. We wouldn’t be without him.
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How disappointing then that the people he works for have let him – and us – down so badly. This week it was announced that the communications regulator Ofcom has launched an investigation into poor performance at Royal Mail after it was revealed more than a quarter of first class mail was not delivered on time in the past year.
The postal service delivered only 73.7 per cent of first class within a day – far short of the 93 per cent target – while second class mail also fell well short of what was expected. This is unacceptable. I don’t for a moment believe that Covid can be blamed for this failure in a service which has somehow managed to battle through wars and other pandemics in its 500-year-old history.
Yes, there was disruption during lockdown but that time is over. We have all moved on.
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Nor do I buy into that ‘oh well, it’s all online now so what do you expect’ schtick. Yes, there has been an inevitable drop in mail volumes as the world moved into a digital age but not everything arrives with a ping in your inbox.
Court papers, bills, NHS appointments, missives from HMRC, speeding tickets – they all continue to come through the post. As do birthday cards from grandma and notes from faraway friends.
And guess what? As ever, it will be the older generation and those on lower incomes who don’t necessarily have regular access online who are disproportionately affected by this failure.
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The public can’t shop around for a postal service either. It’s not like a supermarket where we can all vote with our feet if we don’t like it.
The Royal Mail is the Royal Mail. In fact, I would argue that delivering letters is a public service and if it’s going wrong then action needs to be taken and swiftly.
Now, far be it from me to suggest that this failure has anything to do with Royal Mail prioritising delivering parcels over letters as has been claimed in some quarters – although it is true that it gets more revenue from pushing packages through doors than slim little envelopes.
And nobody wants to see red post boxes going the same way as telephone boxes – admired for nostalgic history rather than usefulness. But the Royal Mail has to get its act together and earn back our stamp of approval.
One last thing…
The Holly and Phil saga appears to be gripping the nation – or at least it looks that way by the amount of media coverage it’s getting. Even those of us who don’t watch morning telly know all about the will-they-won’t-they break up drama of one of TV’s most famous couples who, if reports are to be believed, have fallen out of friendship with each other.
The thing I can’t understand though is all the praise the pair are garnering
for their ‘professionalism’ in carrying on regardless of any ill-feeling – as if standing side by side in front of the cameras and just doing their job is worthy of an honour. Most of us work each day with someone who, at best gets on our nerves, and at worst we would gladly throw under a bus.
Nobody gets on with everybody all of the time but generally we all just suck it up. And we don’t get paid a king’s ransom to do it.
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Susan Lee has been a journalist for more than 30 years. She is currently Group Wire Editor for Reach, writes a column for print titles across the group and is co-presenter of the award winning podcast The Menopod
