Social services
Roy Hattersley
We lost our post office five years ago, long before losing post offices became fashionable. So we had to run our ‘stop the closure’ campaign without the support of a national newspaper. The only media coverage that we achieved was an angry letter in the parish magazine from the departing sub-postmaster’s sister, explaining that changes in the way in which pensions were paid had denied her brother a decent living. But that told only half the story. Running a village post office is a vocation, not a job. The long hours and low pay are only tolerable to people who regard selling stamps as no more than an opportunity to talk to, and about, their neighbours. So our feeble attempts to find a purchaser for the going concern failed. The post office was closed and the letter box in its wall was painted gold in an (often unsuccessful) attempt to prevent mail being dropped into a hole from which not even a first-class stamp would guarantee delivery.
It must be said that the GPO — surprised that the closure was not its own idea — did all that it could to soften the blow. A grant would have been available to help establish an occasional service in the village hall. None of us, who had argued so passionately that a sub-post office was essential to our needs, felt able to man the replacement for half a day each week. Fortunately we still have a village shop run by a whole family who enjoy the work. It provides all that we need except postal orders. The full extent of its stock only became clear to me after I told the proprietor that I was on my way to visit my mother in hospital and he told me that he sold bed socks. Alternative colours were produced from under a counter which is always piled high with bread and cakes. Time never stales their infinite variety.
The view of goods displayed in the windows is obscured by notices about good causes and postcards advertising the availability of second-hand lawn mowers and surplus-to-requirement prams. The effect is a triumph for public relations. If our village store had an advertising slogan, it would be ‘Not just a shop, a social service’. Early each morning the shop augments its counters by erecting trestle tables on the pavement. When Asian traders in my old Birmingham constituency behaved in the same way, complaints were made to the police, and the barriers to free passage along the highway were forcibly removed. We regard the intrusion on to our footpath as a village amenity. The trestles are weighed down with fruit and flowers, reminiscent of the sheep-shearing celebration in a Stratford production of A Winter’s Tale. For all I know, they come from the wholesale market in the east end of Sheffield. But I like to think that they are hand-picked in local orchards and kitchen gardens.
The generally sylvan impression is slightly spoilt by a prominently displayed rack of newspapers in which the more lurid tabloids feature most boldly. But these days, not even The Archers is, or are, free from scandal. And tales of lurid goings-on in the big cities remind us country folk how lucky we are to live in rural innocence. Nobody I know in the village admits to buying a newspaper with a red masthead. Perhaps they are hung outside the shop, like a corpse on a gibbet, as a warning and example of the punishment which follows sin. Newspapers are the shop’s staple business and, unlike the owners of many country stores, the proprietor and his family are happy to deliver. That is not an easy task in a village of hills and steps. But it is completed with the dedication of the true professional. My entirely respectable publications are delivered early each morning and hung on my door knocker in a paper carrier bag which often proclaims that it began life in an exotic boutique in a distant town. Watching the proprietor weigh out tomatoes, I find it hard to believe that he lives a double life.
From time to time I wonder how the village would survive if the shop went the way of the post office. A pint of milk would be available at the farm but a pound of butter and a loaf of bread would be two miles away. And there would be one less place in which to meet and express the inconsequential pleasantries which turn acquaintances into neighbours. But I put the idea out of my mind with the thought that the proprietor’s son and heir is a member of the mountain rescue team. He likes living in the hills and — despite supporting Chelsea from afar — is far too sensible to long for the big city. The glory of our village shop is that it is owned and managed by people who are village shopkeepers at heart.
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