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A POSTMAN was given a special send-off by the people of Goring to mark his retirement.
Steve Lambourne, 64, spent 40 years delivering mail and was popular with villagers, many of whom he saw every day.
More than 30 people attended the celebration held at the community centre in Station Road on Wednesday last week.
Mr Lambourne was given more than £500 in cash towards a holiday and a card with hundreds of signatures of residents and business people thanking him for his kindness.
The event was organised by Louise Pasker, who is lettings and valuations manager at estate agents Warmingham & Co in High Street.
She said: “Steve has been a wonderful, familiar and very friendly face around Goring for the last 40 years and he will be greatly missed.”
Ms Pasker came up with the idea of the send-off after learning that the Royal Mail had not organised anything to mark the occasion.
She said: “I chatted to Steve one morning and he was talking about his retirement and that Royal Mail wasn’t doing anything for it.
“We just wanted to do something to celebrate him and everything he has done for the community over the last 40 years. Having grown up in the village, I have very fond memories of waving and chatting to Steve over the years. I will miss his smiley face, as will everyone else who is here.”
Mr Lambourne, who lives in Didcot, said he had liked his job.
He said: “I’ve enjoyed the community aspect of helping people when they have needed it.
“I remember when someone lost their cat and I was prepared to go and look for it. That was the community spirit in those days.
“To me, the community is what it was all about and Goring has such a strong sense of that. I am so grateful to everyone who has attended today, stopped to talk to me in the street, hugged me and wished me well. Thank you.
“I love the people here and I’m going to miss the little chit-chats.”
Mr Lambourne said he wasn’t surprised Royal Mail had not marked his retirement, saying it was a “much superior” organisation when he started compared with today.
He said: “For the first 10 years, everybody knew me as the go-to person but it has gone down rapidly.
“The manager came over this morning and brought me a bottle of wine and he said, ‘They’re a strange lot there, I tried to get them to get you a card but no one did’.”
Mr Lambourne said he planned to put his cash gift towards a holiday in the Caribbean. In the meantime, he would take a two-month break to “reassess, potter about and then take it from there”.
Goring parish councillor Stephanie Bridle joked: “What I have always admired is the speed at which you progress around the village — you just charge around.
“I remember the day that you lost your bike and you had to go into the van, that was terrible. How could you do that to a postman?”
She added: “Your smiley face comes up every time.
“I think I have been living in the village for about four years longer than you have been here but you knew all my kids and the kids that have grown up in the village.
“So it’s not only those who are here that remember you but the generations below us.
“You are the epitome of Postman Pat — you’re so familiar and we’re really going to miss you.
“The only thing that does worry me is that you know an awful lot about us!
“We wish you a really wonderful, long, happy and healthy retirement and please come back and visit us.”
