RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30636, 30 December 1964, Page 16

RANDOM REMINDER

LISTENING POSTS

While all you lay-abouts are enjoying your holidays, there are people working, and this is not a personal complaint. We have in mind, particularly, the people in the post offices, for just the other day we had occasion to go to our nearest one and open up one of those private boxes. And on opening the door, there we were, staring through a sort of tunnel at half a face of a post office worker busy sorting letters and putting them into boxes like tunnels open at one end only. We could, as we say, see only half a face, burt. it was the operative half, and the mouth was working. We caught a few words, something about getting jammed against the rails and then we shut our little door and departed. But we were back within the hour, although we

knew there had not been a further clearance of mail. And we saw the same man again. He was bending over a bit, and we could see he was bald. This time he did not speak. We were disappointed, because we thought he might have said something which would help clear up the puzzle left by the halfsentence we had caught earlier. It has become a habit now, going back to the post office and opening the box and looking through. We haven’t seen that man since. But there have been others and already we know enough about one to appreciate just how much he needed the overtime to get presents for his large family. We wonder if the littlest one is called Tim? Perhaps, some day, we will pluck up the courage to

call through the tunnel and ask him. We know a fair bit about the post office workers now. There is laughter there, and love, and tears, sort of. A brief passing parade. Of course it is probably twoway traffic. What do the workers think, of the snatches of conversation they hear as the boxes are opened and rifled, the delighted trills from the office girls and the heartbreak of someone to whom no-one has written. There seemed, at first, to be no reason why we should not enjoy our little peep-hole on life for a long time. But we have just thought about one horrid possibility, which could end it all in bitterness and embarrassment. Some day, when we open the door andapply our face to the opening, we may find ourselves staring at the top half of a face staring back at us.