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
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
