A fond farewell as post office saga goes full circle
As one Facebook post put it: it’s the end of an era.
This was under a picture of a queue lined up outside the post office modules in St Peter’s Church, Sydenham Street.
Well it wasn’t really an “era” as such, since it only lasted fourteen months, but it was a memorable period for all that.
I mean: how many post offices do you know on the inside of old Victorian brick-built churches such as this? I imagine there can’t be that many.
I will miss it. It became an integral part of my life for a while, not least because I was the postman there. Still am, but I won’t be delivering Local Collect and Special Delivery packages to the church any more.
Nor will I be issuing a hearty good morning to the staff while jumping the queue and going straight to the counter: my privilege as the designated postal worker.
It was quite bizarre in there. I’ve never been a fan of Christian iconography, particularly of the grim 19th century variety, so it was always a relief to get to the counter to see the image of Ganesha, the colourful Hindu elephant-headed god, in the post office: obviously the proprietor’s personal deity.
But the church was warm and dry compared to the Portacabin in Gladstone Road it replaced, so I guess we shouldn’t moan.
According to Wikipedia, Ganesha is the patron of letters and learning and the remover of obstacles, so a particularly apt figure to oversee to proceedings at a post office, albeit a temporary one.
One thing it made clear was how under used some of these old church buildings are. Good on Simon Tillotson for making it available as a home for the post office, but it makes you wonder what other community needs the building might serve in future.
The new post office inside the Co-op on Cromwell Road is now open, two counters to serve the whole of Whitstable, on the site of the old Royal Mail delivery office.
Things have come full circle. People will be popping in to collect their packages again, as they did for many years, on almost exactly the same spot.
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From The Whitstable Gazette 22/02/18
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