A year ago (Issue 9 July/Aug 2009) I, and millions of others, lamented the loss of a local post office. I felt so disempowered and angry that I found it hard to construct a coherent article, and the temporary gravestone at the turn to the village marked “RIP Northlew post office” said it all.
But I had underestimated the community determination in the village. Two mornings a week, for just five hours in total, something wonderful happens on the edge of the square in the Church Room.
The place buzzes with activity. For fifty pence you get tea and a refill plus biscuits, and a sit down round a huge table with people passing the time of day, in no hurry to move off. There are trestle tables bursting with bedding plants, runner beans, tomato plants and enough young things in pots to fill the most ambitious of borders and veg plots, for not much more than the cuppa. Another table has household essentials – baked beans, soup, flour, coffee, teabags and jam, envelopes and notepads.
Because the mobile post office equipment comes from the local market town of Hatherleigh five miles away, some thoughtful bod has arranged to bring orders of fresh bread from Pete’s bakery at the same time, so the place smells delicious. You can order fresh milk too. And best of all, two women have taken one morning each and bake for England the night before to fill yet more trestles with cakes and savouries. Home made cheese scones, quiches, scotch eggs, sausage rolls and pasties, boiled fruit loaves, butterfly cakes and Victoria sponges are snapped up by the discerning who no doubt also make a beeline for the best W.I. fare wherever that’s on offer. These goodies are so popular that some are sold before the official opening time to the early birds clamouring at the door.
Notwithstanding all the good humour and positive action, there is a frisson of fury with the Royal Mail at the moment; there has been no Internet connection for the past month and that means no online services and all payments have to be made in cash or by cheque. I wasn’t there to see it, but the vicar heroically hung out of the window to try to improve things; the village has no broadband (another long and painful saga) and the outreach service relies on a temperamental satellite. The story is that the leaves on the trees are interfering with the signal. This might sound unbelievably bonkers to city dwellers, but my broadband goes down every time it’s raining or windy. But post-mistress Angi cheerfully takes your post and your money and everyone just works around the problems.
It’s not perfect. Two mornings of local services is not enough and I have to drive to other post offices at least twice a week, but rather than let a national organisation dictate a minimum service, the village has celebrated what it has, rolled up its communal sleeves and taken upon itself to provide something of real value that never fails to make me smile – a joke, a bun, a sense of achievement and a refusal to be outdone.
Published in The Landsman August/September 2009 Issue 15
