This attractive building now accommodates two beautifully decorated flats downstairs, and a large apartment upstairs, but it used to be the village post office and shop. It was like a little grocers shop which sold just about everything; the post office was where you cold buy everything to do with mail, plus cards and stationery items, and you cold also tax your car, collect your pension, pay bills, withdraw money from savings, … oh hundreds of things. Our village has a high proportion of elderly people, so to be able to walk to the post office in the village was marvellous.
Then… the government began to close local post offices, and ours fell victim to the cuts. The argument was that there are two other post offices within a couple of miles. One has no parking nearby so again for elderly or disabled people it is difficult, and the other, although with plenty of parking, is still a car or bus journey away.
Oh well… times change, there used to be other shops in the village which have now gone… we still have the paper shop which now sells a wonderful array of groceries as well as newspapers… but it’s not the same as having a post office.
Lois Elsden 