Last post for a lifeline of communities

THE village post office is the hub of any rural community. Of course,
i t' s a place to buy a book of stamps, pick up your post and pay the bills.

However, for many people in remote areas the post office stands for much
more. It is a meeting place, general store and makeshift town hall.

But for their weekly visits, some – the elderly in particular – may have no
other contact with the outside world.

That lifeline is fast dying out.

Rural post offices are closing at the rate of 700 a year, more than ever
before.

Each week, at least two rural post offices close in Scotland alone. Many
more are just managing to cling on to their business.

Invariably, the retirement of experienced sub-postmasters and
sub-postmistresses is forcing the Post Office to close branches simply
because it cannot find replacements.

The Post Office audit last year revealed losses of £250million, making it
increasingly difficult to prop up 8,000 sub-post offices which are already
getting a £30million-a-year subsidy.

Today, the Scottish Daily Mail looks at how three different communities have
fared as the network is gradually eroded . . .

Sheena McGrath embodies all that is great about the dying breed of
postmistresses. She stepped into the breach five years ago when her local
post office – part of the grocer's – shut down because it was running at a
loss.

But Mrs McGrath, who was born and raised in the Perthshire village of Rait,
east of Perth – was determined not to see her 40-strong community deprived of
its post office.

All her life there had been a post office.

And locals faced a four-mile journey to the next village to collect their
mail, cash their Giros and pick up their pensions.

Mrs McGrath promptly converted her spare, third bedroom into an ad hoc post
office. It can accommodate only two customers at a time – three if someone
sits down. She works four mornings a week, for a net income of £50.

Mrs McGrath, 58, had never worked before. Her husband Andrew, a 68-year-old
agricultural engineer, was looking forward to retirement. Their two grownup
children, Hilda, 35, and Kevin, 34, had long since left the family home.

Mrs McGrath says: 'If you took away the post office you would rip the very
heart out of the village. There's nothing else here. The nearest post office
otherwise is four miles away. How would the old folk who don't have a car
collect their pension? It's a great wee place for them to come and have a
chat. I couldn't have let them down.

'The lady before me had two small children and she just couldn't afford to
carry on. It's not a job you do for the money. I'm lucky to take home £200 a
month. And maybe that's something the Government could look at.

'There are only about 20 people that use the post office every week. But to
them it's important. They come in to pay bills and have a chat, send the odd
letter. I keep it open as a labour of love.

'And seeing as the children had moved away, it wasn't as if we needed the
third bedroom anyway.' Joseph Jannetta, 50, has hung on for 13 years as
sub-postmaster in Methil, at the heart of First Minister Henry McLeish's Fife
constituency.

His is the only post office for two miles and in the last three years he has
seen three other small businesses in his street – a butcher's, a solicitor's
and a drapery – shut down.

Now he faces a new threat. The Government wants to revamp the benefit
collection system. From 2003, claimants will no longer present their pension
books for cash but draw money with a swipe card from an automated system.

For the beleaguered Post Office, that could mean a loss of £400million in
annual revenue – a potential death blow to sub-postmasters like Mr Jannetta
who rely mainly on benefit as their main core of business.

He says: 'Methil is not exactly the most affluent of areas. Benefits work
accounts for 70 per cent of my business.

'Without that, my seven part-time staff would be out of a job and my other
shop, which sells newspapers, sweets and wool, would have to close too. We
need Government help and we need it now.

'For too long, the rural communities have been ignored. We're not big, we're
not flash and we don't generate a lot of urban- style money. But is that a
reason to forsake us?

'The High Street banks have already gone. The nearest branches are several
miles away in Leven, but most of my customers don't have a car. I have about
2,000 customers a week – half of them pensioners. What will they do if I go?'

Last year, Mr Jannetta went to London to plead with Trade and Industry
Secretary Stephen Byers for help. Mr Byers promised a solution by Christmas.

The Government's plan is to enable post offices to diversify by offering
banking services – a Universal Bank scheme, run jointly through Post Office
accounts, cash machines and a direct debit system.

But the scheme is to be funded by banks – £140million a year is said to be
needed – not centrally.

And, says Mr Jannetta, the proposal may not be enough to save post offices
such as his.

He says: 'It shouldn't be up to banks to subsidise us, it should be the
Government.' Mr Jannetta believes his only hope may now be to pester Mr
McLeish.

'He's not a customer but he is aware of my existence. I have bent his ear on
numerous occasions,' he admits.

Doris Gray faced a sad time last Christmas. It was the first time in 30
years she had not sorted the seasonal post for her small community of 120
households.

Mrs Gray, a 69-year- old widow, ran Britain's most northerly post office in
Haroldswick on the Isle of Unst in Shetland, providing an invaluable service
for islanders.

But after years of long hours and meagre pay – £4,329 a year after tax – she
finally decided that enough was enough. Now the villagers have to rely on a
bus provided by the council once a fortnight to make the the four-mile
journey to the nearest post office in Baltrasound.

There is no pub, no hotel and the school closed three years ago. And with
it, says Mrs Gray, went the heart of the community. She says: 'It's a
terrible shame. I miss the chat and the banter. But it was hard work for a
woman on her own at my time of life.

'I never meant to run it for as long as I did. When my husband died in 1990,
I just worked on.

'But now there is nothing left here. It's like a ghost town.

'You can't help but feel that the old ways are slowly dying out. But not all
change is for the better.

'Politicians should remember that.

'They thought it was a good idea to get rid of the railways. And look what
happened.

'They were wrong then. And they're wrong now. But will they listen before
it's too late? I don't know.'

DAILY MAIL, 07th February 2001