Last Post? Yes. Really


Huttonian is told that despite the misgivings of some of those pensioners who still use the Hutton (mobile) Post Office on its twice weekly visit to the village the diktat of the Hall Committee whereby the van was no longer welcome to park outside the village hall has now come into effect. The Van is now doing its stuff on the wind swept slopes of Knowe's Close. No shelter. no Loo.
Come April 2010 will it have any customers left especially if the coming winter will be as inclement as the present summer? Wanna bet?

Well done Hall Committee. What the Post office started by closing the office in the Hall you are finishing off in style. Sweet revenge but a bit hard on the community?

Or don't you mind?

(The image of the Mobile Post Office outside the Village Hall is what the Sun might describe as Very Unique. Rare certainly. Down load and keep safe.)

Labels: Hutton Hall Committee, Hutton Post Office

  ¶ 5:02 PM (0) comments

  HUTTON POST OFFICE. IS ANYONE LISTENING?

When Huttonian first started blogging (in pure innocence and naive ignorance of the consequences) he did so as he felt the 'ordinary villager' needed a voice, often reluctant to speak up against the diktats of the local 'establishment'-the highheidyins of the Village Hall Committee and the Kirk Elders, interchangeable in many cases. We have a classic case at this moment-the strange one of the (potentially) disappearing post office in which Huttonian feels a nostalgic almost proprietorial interest as a former sub post master. As keen bloggees from recent posts will know and as again reported in the Berwickshire's account of the last meeting of the Hutton and Paxton Community Council-you'll need to fork out 65p on the hard copy, not available on line-the Hall Committee has formally asked that the mobile PO not to park outside the Village Hall during its two weekly visits to Hutton, one hour each Monday and Friday. Thus pensioners (and we are now talking about a maximum of 7 regular elderly customers)will lose any chance of sheltering within the Hall in bad weather waiting for access to the van or using the facilities as they used to when the office was in the hall itself. Parking in Knowe's Close, up the hill, beside the parking area may be more convenient being nearer to most of the pensioner's homes but damned inconvenient (no urinal pun intended)when it is cold and wet and you need to go, as it were.

Having talked to some of those affected it appears that the VHC have cited, inter alia, additional' insurance costs' should they have to open the building for an extra two hours a week (not apparently a factor when the PO was under the roof)and a possible clash with funerals flooding the car park and making it impossible for the van to position itself as usual. On the Richter Scale of spurious reasons these two must rank pretty high. The buzz on the (deathly silent) street is that this is purely an act of revenge on the PO establishment for closing the Post Office and a defiant statement of non cooperation. Great. But who suffers? The Post Office Establishment? They will terminate the service at the first defensible pretext: the village does not want us so farewell! No its the customers; a few hardy and some very elderly souls who really need the facility and given that the Village Hall Trust exists to serve the community, they now appear to be falling down on the job-out of pique.

I asked some of my contacts in the village who are unhappy at this decision why don't they say something? The Hall Committee members are all well known and for the most part accessible. Its the usual response-we don't want to make a fuss-heads are kept so low around there that a parapet is not necessary. Nor has the Community Council taken a position. Shame. Someone needs to try and put matters right before the village loses the only remaining amenity and those few surviving pensioners who like cash in hand are obliged to trudge into Berwick; much further than the Village Hall.
And if there really are additional insurance costs (which I doubt) then let us see what can be done about them. I suspect they would not be high and a coffee morning proceeds could probably absorb them for several years.

Apparently the Post Office is asking for comments on the enforced move to Knowe's Close: 08457 223344. But on protesting to them you are really talking to the

wrong people

Labels: Hutton Hall Committee, Hutton Post Office, Mobile Post Office

  ¶ 2:09 PM (4) comments

 
Chilling Out in the Post Office-or rather outside it


Huttonian understands that the main motivation in asking the Post Office to park its mobile thingee in the most exposed part of the village and not outside the Village Hall as at present was an 'understandable feeling' on part of the Hall Committee that the Post Office Highheidyins having done the village a bad turn in closing the post office can now expect no cooperation from the community
.
Right?

Making the point.

Right!

And now who will suffer from this fine gesture of civic minded cussedness.

Not the mobile Post Office person snug in her cab; not the Highheidyins in distant wherever who would dearly like an excuse for abandoning the service as being 'not wanted by the local stakeholders'

It is I fear the dwindling band of pensioners who are apparently still prepared to put up with some small local difficulties to get their money cash in hand as they have always done rather than flog into Berwick. If the Hall Committee really want to inconvenience them further (and Knowe's Close on a chilly November day with no relief facilities and no shelter is as inconvenient as it can get) then they are going about it the right way.

So why not open the Hall while the van is outside for just over two hours a week?
Official pretext : Have to pay too much extra insurance.

Really?

Might a whip round cover it? Good use if money from a Coffee morning

Huttonian is prepared to contribute


Positive Thinking seems called for.

Labels: Hutton Hall Committee, Hutton Post Office, Pensioners

  ¶ 5:02 PM (3) comments

  HUTTON POST OFFICE ON THE MOVE AGAIN

A tucked away little paragraph in the Berwickshire which you can read here about the latest trial and tribulation to befall the Hutton Post Office-now in Hutton, mails on wheels, two hours a week Monday and Friday dinner times. Apparently it has been suggested by the Hutton Hall Management committee that the 'mobile unit' no longer park itself outside the village hall but in the little housing estate, Knowe's Close just up from the 'main' street. More convenient for the pensioners, apparently.Better parking as well it is claimed

Nothing to do with Huttonian anymore but I think the Hutton Hall Committee has got this a bit skewed. Much more helpful would be to have their hall open with its facilities including loos for the hour that the van is there thus providing shelter for the mostly elderly customers only one of whom is allowed in the 'mobile unit' at any one time for 'health and safety reasons'. After all the Post Office used to be in the hall and parking there (for the very few who come by car from outside the village)is certainly easier than at Knowes Close.

No decision apparently has been taken but assuming that the 'stake holders' (here there be Vampires?) agree to the change we have the prospect of in winter of the pensioners having to form a cross legged line in the howling waste land of Knowe's Close, a very exposed location, with no comfort facilities available. Mind you there is one advantage when the weather is clement-the play ground is there so there is some thing fun to do on the slides and swings when waiting your turn to do your postal business. 'Come down of the slide Missus, your pension is ready.'

Labels: Hutton Post Office, Mobile Post Office

  ¶ 12:30 PM (0) comments

  Get me to the Post in time



Huttonian paid his first visit to the Mobile Post Office -Hutton Branch-yesterday. It comes hot tyre from Coldstream for one hour 12 to 1 on Mondays and Fridays disrupting, one assumes, some pensioners' dinner times. One old friend was being served when I arrived so I had to wait in the Hutton chill while she was being served-only one customer in the van at a time for 'security reasons' This could be a problem on wet and windy days especially if a queue builds up and one solution would be to open the adjacent village hall during post office times (It wasn't yesterday) Nor was there much sign of customer demand-I saw one other pensioner in the twenty minutes or so (out of the hour the van is there) so I wonder if the come and get it facility but you have got to hurry is been given something of a cold shoulder.

The van itself is hi-tech with a gsm mobile phone type connection for on line transactions. Its shiny new and with a more or less full time post mistress/driver (It serves three other locations and the pm/d is part of the Coldstream PO not yet closed but I suspect living on borrowed time.

AS I helped the sole other customer down the rather difficult steps at the end of the van I asked her if she missed the old post office-'Desperately' she said and especially when it was in the Old Manse. 'That was fun' she said 'On the kitchen table and all'

Indeed; even if it sometimes meant licking the marmalade* and brushing the crumbs** off the bottom fiver of your pension.

I bought 4 packs of First Class stamps.

A Hutton record I believe.

(* Post Mistress responsibility. ** Pensioner's ditto)

Labels: Hutton Post Office, Mobile Post Office, Old Manse

  ¶ 9:53 AM (5) comments

  Come in. You will have bought your stamps'

High Noon. Monday.There it was, dead on time, the Post Office Outreach Mobile Post Office. The shivering queue of pensioners outside Hutton Village Hall surged forward-'One at a time please' barked the voice of the Mobile Post Mistress 'This is the Post Office, customers privacy to be respected. One at a time' Huttonian was the last in the queue, 40 minutes in light rain later (the Village Hall was locked, no shelter there)7 pensions dispensed, 4 stamps sold, I boarded the van and advanced, unimpeded to the 'counter'. 'Who are you?' asked the MPM. 'I told her' 'I have not seen you before' ' My first visit since the service replaced the post office' ' Are you from here?' 'I was but now stay in Duns' 'Sorry I can't serve you. This van is only for the community' 'But surely this is a public facility' 'Public as in Hutton or, at a pinch, Paxton. Think about it. If every Jock, Sean and Jimmy turned up we do not carry enough stock to satisfy demand. Sorry. Back to Duns' '

'But I only want a packet of First Class Stamps'

'Dream on' and slammed the grill shut.

My blistering retort died on my lips

And the wife bent over me with a warm mug of tea. 7-15 AM Tuesday.


(I really must get to Hutton and see what really happens(

But I fear the worst.

Labels: Hutton Post Office, Mobile Post Office

  ¶ 9:52 AM (3) comments

 
Peripatetic Post

The Berwickshire reports on the first week of the new Mobile Community Outreach Post Office here Huttonian has yet to revisit Hutton between 12-1pm Monday or Friday to buy a second class stamp or have his passport checked or any of the other services offered by Mary the Peripatetic Postie. The article has an image of the previous Post Mistress being the first Hutton customer to use the new 'service' I wonder if she was

the only one?


(Given how fed up local people were about the closure of the last remaining public service based in Hutton)


Having your dinner or braving the elements to get your parcel posted.

Not much of a choice.

Labels: Hutton Post Office, Mobile Post Office

  ¶ 12:13 PM (2) comments

  Dun Postin. Sic Transit Gloria Monday


Black Monday in Hutton. After goodness knows how many years, in many diferent houses, the Hutton Post Office expires at 1230pm. A sad morning marked by coffee and biscuits served to some of the faithful long time customers. I was the only former Post Master to turn up by mid morning. One lives in the village, another in Chirnside, a third in Ayton and our former lodger, in charge of the kitchen table facility in the Old Manse for three years has long since left for the Big Smoke. Now we have the customer outreach van. Mondays and Fridays. An hour over lunch time. Parked outside the hall and unlikely to turn up in inclement weather whilst the pensioners shiver in the Hutton winter. And all at extra cost to the Post Office.

After the farce of the 'consultation exercise' one can only assume the policy is to make the remaining 'customer base' so fed up that they vote with their feet (actually by car) and go to a bigger more 'viable' office in eg Berwick or Duns. And oblige the remaining pensioners to do what the Post Office has been urging them to do for years-'get your bloody pittance paid into your bleeding bank account, for goodness sake. Cash in hand is so 20th century'

'Service to the community?'

'You must be joking!'

Labels: Hutton Post Office

  ¶ 12:34 PM (5) comments

 
Last Post: Definitive

As you can read here the Last Post has sounded for the Hutton Post Office-18 February is the day chosen to close its doors, according to the article. Curious choice as it is a Wednesday and the PO would not have been open anyway-but perhaps the Post Mistress can be summoned from her retirement (Monday 16th presumably being the last day it will be functioning)to open the door and bang it shut. Hard.

I hope there will be a rousing party to mark the event and even a closing down sale-Buy two First Class stamps and get a second class free, or vice versa.

As a former Post Master I await

my invitation.

Angry Pensioners
First Class Stamping
in muddy Boots.
The Post Office is late,
Again.
Punctured

Apparently

( J. Hume 113 1/3 attrib)

The image is of Hutton Village Hall.Very few village post offices have such a splendid building. And it never gets punctured

Labels: Hutton Post Office

  ¶ 9:51 AM (0) comments

  Post Hoc


A bloggee has indicated what may be the shape of things to come for Hutton, Swinton and Greenlaw: go to here to see what he means. Of course we have not reached that stage as yet.In the absence of any firm date for the start of the mobile service the three immobile ones will continue sine die

And as bloggees will recall we also await the provision of a very special van with the ability to operate either in a time warp or in a parallel universe. Or both. Otherwise the need to be in Hutton and Greenlaw simultaneously will encounter some technical problems.

It is of course possible, but not likely that the Post Office, taking a leaf out of HMG's book will throw money at it: three vans no less. And one Friday; after the pensioners have shivered for hours waiting for the the No 32 Hutton Express Postal Service mobile unit-three will come at once.

And its worth considering the Hutton Think Tanks suggestion of combining the mobile Library with the post office van. That will give you a selection of Mills and Boon to read while the pensioner in front of you in the queue takes what is due in second class stamps. And insists on

two recounts.

Labels: Hutton Post Office, Mobile Post Office

  ¶ 10:02 AM (0) comments

  Third Class Mail?

Despite being under sentence of death since last October Hutton Post Office is still functioning with no date given for its final closure-this according to the Berwickshire as you can read here Apparently, or so Huttonian is reliably informed, highheidyins on the second to top floor of the Post Office Tower-about as high as your heid can get, having decided to close three offices in Berwickshire, and replace them with a mobile post office van, have failed to find a driver for the Stampmobile.

So could there be second thoughts on the closure?

Or might it have been better to have had a more sensible

first thought?

Mind you a problem may have been caused by the inability to find a driver to get the Pension Bus to two places at once. You will note that :

"The van is set to call in at Greenlaw from 2-4pm on Mondays, 9-11am on Tuesdays, 11.30am-1.30pm on Wednesdays, 2.30-4.30pm on Thursdays and 12-1.30pm on Fridays"

Now Hutton is to 'enjoy' this service on Mondays and Fridays from 12-1-30. Fair enough; Jehu can get his van from Hutton to Greenlaw on Mondays leaving Hutton at close of play in time to open up and have a pub lunch at Greenlaw at 2pm. The odd dead Pheasant en route is acceptable collateral damage. But how on earth is he going to operate in both Hutton and Greenlaw simultaneously on Fridays?

I think he should be told.

But perhaps he has-

Beam me up Scotty may be the answer

Labels: Hutton Post Office, Post Office Ltd

  ¶ 12:46 PM (2) comments

 



It already is clear that the Duns effect-as opposed to the Hutton one, is becoming increasingly evident the longer we live here. This is a colder damper place and damp equals snow in these parts at this time of early winter. In Hutton one went out in the snow because it was there-Dingers are more purposeful -go out to get there or get something.In Hutton that was not an option-nowhere to get to-almost-on non Post Office days and nothing to get-see sentence immediately above. So except for 9-12-30 Mondays and Thursdays stay at home.

This morning Huttonian was out before the first frost bitten Dunnock and blazed a trail through at least 1cm of snow to get the Observer and was enchanted to be beaten to it by the man whose imprints you can see coming from the blizzard emptied market square. How can I tell from his footprints that he is a fellow Observer reader I hear you cry? Simple My Dear Sonwat-his feet were obviously determined but slightly shuffling-a man riffling through the 12 supplements and deciding which to recycle in a convenient sack before reaching home, whilst wearing heavy gloves and suffering an equally heavy cold. 'Has some one just bought the other Observer from you?' I asked the newsagent. I
'Indeed you have just missed him-bad cold poor fellow'

I rest my case

I am not sure which Sunday Worm the birds take around here but the third image seems to be the footprint of a three legged feathered friend-or three small ones hopping to keep themselves warm. The snow had frustrated the worm hunting but now, early evening the snow has mostly gone; replaced by mud. And that does remind me of

Hutton

Labels: Duns snow, Hutton Post Office

  ¶ 10:03 AM (0) comments

 
Last Post


The period of farcical 'consultation' is over and we have the official confirmation: Hutton Post Office is to close and will be replaced by a 'mobile outreach service' (Don't bother us with facts, any inconvenience is regretted, you know it makes sense). Another community institution is to go. I must say that when we had the post office in the Old Manse, paying out the pensions over the kitchen table amongst the remains of breakfast ( A £20 note with a couple of cornflakes attached is still legal tender, we were assured) I did wonder how long the blue suited accountants would tolerate such an anachronism. I can vividly remember the official gabbling into his mobile when he had come to 'measure up' the kitchen for the computer (replacing the ledger, grocery scales and hand date stamp with the 00 of 2000 missing- our own millennium bug) ' Yes its a Post Office-in a Kitchen!.On the Table, for crying out aloud...No bullet proof screen!...no counter...no queuing strip.....two mornings a week..never more than 15 customers on Mondays..and three on Thursdays... Pensioners.. Yes they actually want to see their money!quite incredible. Quaint really'

And the great battle we had over asking the techies to put the computer on a trolley so it could be wheeled away after 'office hours' to give us back some living space. PO regulations allowed us only 18 inches of 'computer flexibility' (for 'technical reasons') so we had to live around it.

Once the Post Office was sited in the Village Hall it was less basic, could offer more services and was more convenient, especially for the elderly no longer having to trek up the muddy, potholed Kirk Lane. But wherever it was it remained a village centre where pensioners could meet friends, chat and take their time over small transactions (rarely involving the purchase of First Class Stamps)Now it will be (from the New Year) either hanging around for the 'mobile outreach'-12 to 1 Mondays and Fridays-dinner time so how thoughtful, or going 7 miles into Berwick to queue at length and having in many cases relying on some one else to take you in; the bus service being so limited.

Any Inconvenience Regretted?

I doubt it.

(The image is of the Old Manse, Post Office included-on the other side)

Labels: Hutton Post Office, Old Manse

  ¶ 9:47 AM (1) comments

  Up the Orifice

Its not always that the letter writers to the editor if the Berwickshire News</span> gets it right but this one did :

SIR, - Several of your correspondents urge readers to write to the Post Office’s “consultation” team giving their views on its branch rationalisation (closure) plans.
As a general believer in democracy, I wish I could endorse this plea as worthwhile.
However, judging by the recently concluded exercise on this side of the border, the whole process is a sham.
The announced outcome and its timing do not suggest any real consultation of the many representations made. Responses from the “consultation” team do not reveal any familiarity with the areas affected.
Remote bureaucrats forwarding computer-generated public relations-speak responses do not show any feel for the issues, but that may only be expected as a reflection of Post Office management, arrogantly aloof from the real needs of the service which it has been steadily eroding, whilst all the while maintaining its corporate bonuses.
So, by all means go through the motions of responding to the “consultation”. The outcome is certain - longer queues in the few remaining branch post offices, or a roadside wait in a wind-swept layby for an outreach van.
People’ Post Offices my derrière.
COLIN WAKELING,
Berrington Lough,
Berwick-upon-Tweed

Amen

And in Hutton there is not even a layby.

I suppose you can take it in turns to wait in the Phone Box

Labels: Hutton Post Office

  ¶ 8:53 AM (2) comments

  Post Orifice under fire

As foreshadowed in yesterday's post( even in this context npi) the saga of the fuss over the proposed closure of the three Berwickshire post offices, Eccles, Greenlaw and Hutton, occupies quite a large chunk of the latest on-line Berwickshire. If you have time and patience read about it here Sadly I doubt that all this activity will make a whit's* worth of difference. In the wide world of the Post Office its the Big Picture which is important and a few frustrated customers in deepest Berwickshire is not going to change minds when the accountants are in charge.

I note that rhe Hutton Hall Committee are keen to take over the Hutton facility themselves and that the Post Office representatives noted this idea. Surely far better to keep on our current postmistress and pay her out of Village Hall funds-given that she only works for about 8 hours a week this is a manageable expense. One fund raising coffee evening could probably cover her for a year. I doubt however that the PO will change its mind over closing the office as it still has to deliver the cash, upkeep the computer, pay the phone bills and provide the stamps etc. Just too much bother. Lets have one big Berwickshire Orifice, say in Duns and if the customers can't be bothered to make their way there let them use e-mail like everyone else. (You can download stamps for goodness sake) Oh people like cash in hand when collecting their pensions!? How quaint. Come on Oldies get real. Don't be so Twentieth Century. This is the age of electronic cash. Get your self a bank account and shop on line. User friendly Tescos will deliver, even to Hutton.

You know it makes sense.

*75p at today's rate of exchange

Labels: Hutton Post Office

  ¶ 2:05 PM (2) comments

  Sadly we missed the protest meeting in Hutton on Monday last about the threatened closure of the Hutton Post Office and its replacement with a twice weekly mobile post office also serving some other settlements in Berwickshire. Huttonian is told that the meeting was lively and included interventions from the Laird in a rare public appearance. My informant believes that the strength of local feeling may persuade the Post Office to change its mind-and their representatives at the meeting claimed that this was a consultative exercise and 'no decisions had been taken' Certainly on cost basis Hutton remains very competitive despite its small customer base(Compared, say, with SW1)

'Are You waiting for Godot?'
asked
the small lady with the large dog.

'No He has been and gone'
said
the natty gent in the beer stained trench coat

'Its the post office I am
waiting for.'

' Its too late for Monday and a bit early
for Friday'
Said the large dog;
surprisingly

'Oh I'll go and put my teeth in then'
said
the gent.

'Nothing like putting your teeth in
for killing time. As it is only just

Wednesday.

I'll do it really
slowly'

(From the Godot in the Borders Hutton Think Tank -attrib.)

Labels: Hutton Post Office

  ¶ 1:33 PM (2) comments

  The vexed questions of rural post offices and the need for a TD16 postcode got an airing at a recent Scottish Borders Council meeting at last attracting the attention of local highheidyins. The Berwickshire has the story here

`So the Big Vision in Post Office Ltd is to replace community post offices in Hutton, Greenlaw and Eccles with mobile vans-thus in the case of Hutton removing the last public service institution from a village, which because of its concentration of elderly folk really needs it. So the pensioners will hang about in a cold and windy street, rain hissing down, haar bound, waiting for the post office van with the only diversion being the possible guest appearance of the number 32 Bus. No doubt the van will be frequently late and then one red letter(npi) day, three will arrive at once.

Sad news for Huttonian as the Old Manse, aka Antrim House gave shelter to the post office for several years and he even enjoyed a brief period as Sub Post Master with a name badge, huge metal weighing scales, a safe screwed to the floor and the challenge of clearing the breakfast table before the first customers (never less than 13 on a Monday) arrived for their cash and conversation-the kitchen table being the 'counter' for 3 years before the first computer arrived and the mammoth operation was transferred around the corner into the old Milk room. And much later to the village hall with its purpose built room now to be abandoned. And I wonder which is more cost effective-paying a post mistress an hourly pittance for an 8 hour week, with an office provided at a peppercorn rent or a gas guzzling van, with presumably a full time driver/post person in charge?

As for the post code saga -read all about it- but with the post office being 'impenetrable' as Councillor Cook so aptly puts it the prospect of having a TD16 for rural Eastern Berwickshire seems as remote as ever

Labels: Hutton Post Office, Post Office Ltd, TD16

  ¶ 11:02 AM (0) comments