The Mail

I really don’t want to go into the rights and wrongs of the Postmen’s current strike, largely because I have insufficient knowledge to do so.

Reading a.’s blog today, I saw she had inserted three different airmail stamps.

This brought me up short as I have a nice little birthday card in its envelope addressed to a distant (in terms of location) boy who is about to become 7. He will not understand why this card does not reach him in time.

October/November is a time of year when I have many family birthdays, and there is a small pile of addressed envelopes containing appropriate cards standing beside the one I mentioned above.

Also on its way to me is a gift voucher from Amazon for one of them and it is currently caught up in a log-jam of mail. Will it reach me in time? I wish now I had settled on an electronic gift voucher, as at least that would have arrived in time. I chose not to do that this year as I feel it is less tangible as a gift, but next time…

For two grandchildren, I am electronically transferring money to their parents as the children are at an age when they really want to choose their presents themselves.

I think what I am trying to say is that everyone talks about the cost to business of this strike, but nobody seems to think about the emotional cost to the man (or woman, or child) in the street.

Additionally another unfortunate ending (for both the postmen and for Royal Mail) is that much business may be permanently lost to other carriers (though currently that option is not open to me.)