Post by rogergreen on Dec 22, 2010 20:42:31 GMT
My time as a Boy Messenger (to use the official job title) was spent in Callander, a small town in Perthshire now lying within the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park, between 1944 and 1947. I was the only messenger there, although I was sometimes assisted by a casual messenger in the late afternoon if things were busy. Because delivery service had to be provided between the hours of 9am and 7pm, my hours of work were 9am – 12noon, 1pm – 4pm and 5.40 - 7pm, Monday to Saturday. Six days at 7 hours 20 minutes a day added up to the 44 hours a week which were customary at that time. I was required to work for a couple of hours every second Sunday and was paid overtime for that.
A large heavy bicycle was my transport. Three-speed gears were in existence but not on GPO bikes! The district was rural and hilly with scattered farms, almost none of which had telephones. Telegram delivery was free at that time to addresses up to 3 miles away from the delivery office. Over that distance, a porterage charge was levied and since most of the farms were over the 3-mile limit they had to pay the charge. I had to collect it, in cash, at the time of delivery and much grumbling was often heard from the reluctant and sometimes hard-pressed farmers. I think the charge started at sixpence for 3-4 miles and the highest amount I ever had to collect was one shilling and sixpence from a house that was over 5 miles away.
It was wartime and blackout restrictions were in force. Lights on the bicycle were battery-powered and not particularly brilliant. Batteries were in short supply due to wartime restrictions and I was obliged to keep using the same battery until its output became so feeble as to be almost invisible. Fortunately, I soon became familiar with all the roads in the area and, because cars were far fewer then – and even fewer due to petrol rationing – the danger of being run down by another vehicle was small. There was a much greater chance of running into a sheep which were fond of sleeping on the road! Fortunately, they mostly did that during the summer months when the road surface was warm after a sunny day and darkness did not fall until quite late.
The distances I had to cycle were not particularly high, possibly 20 – 30 miles a day on average, but the saddle on my bicycle was broad, made of some rubber composition and wore away the seat of my trousers very quickly. Although a benevolent employer provided me with a new uniform every six months (lighter-weight in summer, heavier in winter) a new pair of trousers usually survived intact for no more than a month. Patching material was alleged to be available on request but I cannot remember any ever being supplied. Instead, one of the postmen obliged with an old uniform jacket from which my mother made patches. The wife of one of the postmen, who was familiar with the problem since her husband’s delivery was done by bicycle, supplied her with a paper pattern and the problem was solved. By the time the six-monthly next issue of uniform came along, a supply of patching material was assured from the previous issue and I was to be found cycling along comfortably perched on a pad of uniform cloth several layers thick!
Being wartime when I started work, hundreds of soldiers were billeted in Callander, many in hotels and boarding houses that had been commandeered and were therefore closed for normal business. Telegrams between the soldiers and their loved ones at home made up for any shortage in business caused by the absence of the peacetime visitors. Bombs were being dropped in air raids all over the country and anxious messages were often passed between soldiers and their wives and families at home. Phone calls were not an option since so few people had access to a telephone. My instructions were always to deliver telegrams to the office of the soldier’s unit but that was not always possible and I sometimes had to make my way from room to room asking for the soldier by name. Since a telegram often contained bad news, my visits were mostly greeted with apprehension.
Most of the telegrams I delivered were to the ordinary residents of Callander and a particularly difficult part of the job was to deliver a telegram informing a wife or mother that her husband or son was missing or perhaps killed in action. Although I never knew the contents of any telegram I delivered, when the news contained in it was particularly bad I was often told the nature of the information and instructed to hand the telegram to a particular member of a family or to forewarn the recipient that the message contained bad news. I delivered several such telegrams and can still picture each scene clearly.
A much happier duty on one memorable occasion was to deliver the welcome news to a family that their son, reported “missing” over three years earlier, was alive and well in a Japanese prison camp. This happened one day in August 1945 when the war with Japan had just come to an end. Prisoner-of-war camps were being liberated and the former captives given access to a free postal service courtesy of the International Red Cross. Proper writing paper and envelopes would rarely have been available and the letter I had to deliver that day was written on a piece of brown paper, apparently torn from a Red Cross parcel. The address was written on one side, the message on the other (all in pencil) and there was no envelope or stamp. When one of the postmen came across it when sorting the incoming mail he took it to the postmaster who immediately summoned me and told me to deliver it at once to the parents. I did that, of course, pedalling my bicycle with more than my usual energy. Both parents were at the door when I handed over the scrap of paper and the joy on their faces was unforgettable. But their joy was mingled with tears when, towards the end of his note, their long-missing son wrote that he hoped his brother was well. Sadly, the brother had been killed on active service two years earlier. Since the survivor had had no news from home during his time as a prisoner of war, he knew nothing of anything that had taken place since his capture almost four years earlier.
Tom Raitt
A large heavy bicycle was my transport. Three-speed gears were in existence but not on GPO bikes! The district was rural and hilly with scattered farms, almost none of which had telephones. Telegram delivery was free at that time to addresses up to 3 miles away from the delivery office. Over that distance, a porterage charge was levied and since most of the farms were over the 3-mile limit they had to pay the charge. I had to collect it, in cash, at the time of delivery and much grumbling was often heard from the reluctant and sometimes hard-pressed farmers. I think the charge started at sixpence for 3-4 miles and the highest amount I ever had to collect was one shilling and sixpence from a house that was over 5 miles away.
It was wartime and blackout restrictions were in force. Lights on the bicycle were battery-powered and not particularly brilliant. Batteries were in short supply due to wartime restrictions and I was obliged to keep using the same battery until its output became so feeble as to be almost invisible. Fortunately, I soon became familiar with all the roads in the area and, because cars were far fewer then – and even fewer due to petrol rationing – the danger of being run down by another vehicle was small. There was a much greater chance of running into a sheep which were fond of sleeping on the road! Fortunately, they mostly did that during the summer months when the road surface was warm after a sunny day and darkness did not fall until quite late.
The distances I had to cycle were not particularly high, possibly 20 – 30 miles a day on average, but the saddle on my bicycle was broad, made of some rubber composition and wore away the seat of my trousers very quickly. Although a benevolent employer provided me with a new uniform every six months (lighter-weight in summer, heavier in winter) a new pair of trousers usually survived intact for no more than a month. Patching material was alleged to be available on request but I cannot remember any ever being supplied. Instead, one of the postmen obliged with an old uniform jacket from which my mother made patches. The wife of one of the postmen, who was familiar with the problem since her husband’s delivery was done by bicycle, supplied her with a paper pattern and the problem was solved. By the time the six-monthly next issue of uniform came along, a supply of patching material was assured from the previous issue and I was to be found cycling along comfortably perched on a pad of uniform cloth several layers thick!
Being wartime when I started work, hundreds of soldiers were billeted in Callander, many in hotels and boarding houses that had been commandeered and were therefore closed for normal business. Telegrams between the soldiers and their loved ones at home made up for any shortage in business caused by the absence of the peacetime visitors. Bombs were being dropped in air raids all over the country and anxious messages were often passed between soldiers and their wives and families at home. Phone calls were not an option since so few people had access to a telephone. My instructions were always to deliver telegrams to the office of the soldier’s unit but that was not always possible and I sometimes had to make my way from room to room asking for the soldier by name. Since a telegram often contained bad news, my visits were mostly greeted with apprehension.
Most of the telegrams I delivered were to the ordinary residents of Callander and a particularly difficult part of the job was to deliver a telegram informing a wife or mother that her husband or son was missing or perhaps killed in action. Although I never knew the contents of any telegram I delivered, when the news contained in it was particularly bad I was often told the nature of the information and instructed to hand the telegram to a particular member of a family or to forewarn the recipient that the message contained bad news. I delivered several such telegrams and can still picture each scene clearly.
A much happier duty on one memorable occasion was to deliver the welcome news to a family that their son, reported “missing” over three years earlier, was alive and well in a Japanese prison camp. This happened one day in August 1945 when the war with Japan had just come to an end. Prisoner-of-war camps were being liberated and the former captives given access to a free postal service courtesy of the International Red Cross. Proper writing paper and envelopes would rarely have been available and the letter I had to deliver that day was written on a piece of brown paper, apparently torn from a Red Cross parcel. The address was written on one side, the message on the other (all in pencil) and there was no envelope or stamp. When one of the postmen came across it when sorting the incoming mail he took it to the postmaster who immediately summoned me and told me to deliver it at once to the parents. I did that, of course, pedalling my bicycle with more than my usual energy. Both parents were at the door when I handed over the scrap of paper and the joy on their faces was unforgettable. But their joy was mingled with tears when, towards the end of his note, their long-missing son wrote that he hoped his brother was well. Sadly, the brother had been killed on active service two years earlier. Since the survivor had had no news from home during his time as a prisoner of war, he knew nothing of anything that had taken place since his capture almost four years earlier.
Tom Raitt
