Reducing the postal service

is not going to help.

The postal service is not there to "make money". If it can break even that is a good thing but simply reducing it to try and cut costs is not the answer.

When I first went to London they still had eleven deliveries a week - and first and second class mail. The service there was extraordinarily efficient. Back here in Downunder we had already had the service reduced to five times a week in the city. Out in "the bush" it was another story - you might get a delivery once a week in some places. If you were relying on it being flown in to a sheep or cattle station it might be even less frequent.

But people still got a lot of mail. The internet has changed that drastically. It is expected that people will have access to the internet - and that they will be prepared to pay their bills online. Some companies will even charge you for sending out a paper bill. It is all about "saving the environment". You save paper and fuel and you pay with, as Brother Cat put it, "a flow of very expensive electrons".

And what happens after that? How many people print off a paper copy of the receipt - "in case the computer crashes" or "because I need it for my records" or.....

My internet provider recently merged with another company. The new outfit refuses to use Paypal - in which I keep a small amount for the precise purpose of paying such bills. I have had to get a "credit" card from the Post Office to pay the bill - because I am not going to give them my bank details. No, I don't have a lot in the bank - but I would like to keep what I have. I would prefer an old-fashioned paper bill but I know I am not going to get one.

A very small friend was here with his mother the other day. The post man left some mail in our letter box while she was here. I suggested to S.... that he could open the box and get the letters out. At not quite three years old this was something he actually found exciting. It was even more exciting when I let him look at the seed catalogue my SIL had sent on to me. It was a real piece of mail. He could hold it in his hands. "Do they do it always?" was, sadly, a question about the post-person which had to be answered, "No, not every day."

But we do almost always get some mail. It is slowing down as the Senior Cat's subscriptions cease and the letters associated with his estate grow less. When the solicitors for the estate of the person who died a short while ago wanted to know something they sent me an email - and I replied the same way. 

But recently I came across some university essays the Senior Cat had written. They must be around seventy years old. The paper is brown with age. The typing is faint. The ink used to mark them is even fainter.  I have put them to one side for Middle Cat and Brother Cat to see. As I did so I thought of all the essays that will never be found in that way. I read the work of students "on-line" now. I am co-supervising a doctorate long-distance. I have not even met the student physically and almost certainly never will. He has never sent me a letter. I have no idea what his handwriting is like.

It's all rather sad really. It would be rather good to revive the art of letter writing.