Stop! Wait a minute, Mr Postman...

Advantages: The Royal Mail are happy to right any wrongs you might encounter while using their services.
Disadvantages: They’re not going to know there’s a problem if no one tells them…

“Anything for me?” enquires my neighbour as she hands me an envelope. I reach up to the shelf beneath the gas meter and retrieve another envelope that I’d left there earlier. “Not today,” I reply “but there’s one here for Fred since you’re passing.” She takes the letter and hurries off round to Fred’s, anxious to find out if *he’s* in possession of the communication she’s so desperate to see.

In recent months, we’ve all fallen victim to Postman Pratt, who’s extensive training in shoving mail through letterboxes seems to have stopped somewhere short of the point where postmen are taught that the address on the envelope should correspond with that of the house it is delivered to. I’m aware that it can’t be the easiest of jobs, and my postman might have it harder than some of his colleagues since I live at the top of a hill and am an on-line shopping fan with occasional luck in competitions, so probably have slightly more than the average amount of packages. I’m also aware that masses of postmen up and down the country manage admirably to do their jobs every morning in the face of similar obstacles without leaving their customers playing pass-the-parcel once they’ve gone.

I’m generally considered an easy going person, but legging it barefoot up the road in a tacky looking leopard skin patterned silk negligee, without the slightest slick of make-up on and hair faintly reminiscent of those glamorous telly ads (like you’ve just stepped out… of a privet hedge) to give the postman back a letter bearing our house number, but the name of a road three streets away, it occurs to me that I’m being too soft on the guy, and probably should have complained ages ago. But back indoors, it’s all too soon forgotten again in the mad scramble to get the kids fed and ready for school.

Several weeks and a few more doorstep mail exchanges with the neighbours later, and it’s now the Christmas holidays. I wake one morning to find my bank statement next to the telly. It’s been opened and its contents have been stuffed back in at random by someone who’s clearly scanned every page. “Some old bloke in a hat brought it round,” my son informs me “he said it was delivered to his house by accident, and he had to read it to find out who it belonged to!”

I’m mortified. My bank statements are horror stories at the best of times, but even Stephen King or other masters of the genre would be hard pressed to produce anything as terrifying as the one that drops through my letterbox straight after Christmas every year. The only thing more likely to strike a chill to the blood is the thought of sharing my financial hate mail with an unknown ‘bloke in a hat’. It’s time for the residents of the street to stop grumbling amongst themselves and do something about the situation.

The website for The Royal Mail (http://www.royalmail.com) is packed with information about the organization and the services it provides, including the fact that 50,000 questionnaires are sent out each month in order to improve customer service (no, I’ve never had one either. Misdirected, perhaps…?) and a code of practice detailing their complaints procedure. I pick up the ‘phone intending to have words with Postman Pratt’s superior in The Strongest Possible Terms, and it’s soon evident that at The Royal Mail, they take their customer service ‘courses’ quite literally…

“Course you don’t want that!” said the man at the other end of the line when I explained the morning’s events to him “He didn’t have to open it – he could’ve read the address on the envelope!”

“Indeed,” I said, feeling that the guy was missing the point here “as could’ve the postman”

“Course he could!”

I politely explain that it’s far from being the first time that our postman has slipped up, tell him that if I wanted to make my neighbours aware of my financial status I’d post details on the front gate (“Course you would!”), and say I’d like some kind of assurance that the postal service is going to get better in this neck of the woods.

“Course you want something doing! I’ll have a word with the section manager and get back to you.”

It was tough, but I manage to resist the urge to reply “Course you will!” Instead I simply say that I’d expect to hear from him, close the phone call and forget about the matter.

A week later, with the time for festive miracles well behind us, I’m amazed to find that all three envelopes lying on the doormat one morning are addressed to us. One of them is from The Royal Mail, telling me that they are not complacent about their failures, and that more care will be taken in future. A book of first class stamps is enclosed as a gesture of goodwill. Hopefully, this is a sign of things to come, but, while I’m happy to overlook the odd incident, should our mail deliveries ever become so unreliable in the future, I’ll be making my feelings known this time – post haste!