known as Te Rahui, the Post Office stood between St Thomas' Anglican Church and the Maketu Hotel overlooking the Bay. Built in the early Colonial style, it was of considerable size as it included residential quarters for the Postmaster and his family. As the services for Money Orders, Savings Banks and Telegraph came into being in New Zealand, so were they made available from the Maketu Post Office. For some years mail services were operated by Maori runners on foot, between Maketu and Te Ngae (Rotorua) and Maketu and Tauranga, taking in the Te Puke area en route. In the late 1860s primitive roads, really little more than tracks, were used by horse traffic, the road to Rotorua being improved in 1869 in readiness for the visit of the Duke of Edinburgh, who travelled through from Maketu to Rotorua by this route. By the mid-1870s coaches were being used for mail services, but these were still often erratic and hampered by innumerable difficulties. One early mail contractor, perhaps the first in the area, was Te Kiri Karamua, who was highly respected and could be trusted to get the mail through safely. Prior to 1880, settlers in Te Puke obtained their mail by a once-a-fortnight service begun in 1873 by the Maori runners, or came to Maketu themselves to collect it. In April 1880, a weekly mail service by horse was established between Maketu and Te Puke, but by the end of 1881 Te Puke had direct mail services with Tauranga. For many further years, Maketu served the Pongakawa and Paengaroa areas. In the early 1920s the residential quarters of the Post Office were no longer being used and later the building was closed and sold, the facilities being transferred to a local store. where they continued at a small counter until 1949. In July that year, in response to urgent requests because of an upsurge in the population, the P. & T. Department deposited an ex-Army hut in Maketu and the Post Office resumed operations there until 1971. A complete list of earlier postmasters and postmistresses is not available, but from 1949 to 1971, the township has been well served by one postmaster and four postmistresses. Of these five, three have been Maoris. The present postmistress, known to everyone as ‘Pat’ is Mrs Pat Newdick (nee Tewhakamiharo Tatana) youngest daughter of the late Rawiri Tatana of the Ngati Huia subtribe of Ngati Raukawa tribe of Poroutawhao, Levin. Her husband's family is of Arawa heritage through the maternal side, and is well known in Maketu as also were the families of Mr Chris Rolleston and Mrs Alma Rae. Work behind the counter of this small country Post Office is something many city dwellers would barely know existed. The position carries great responsibility, and, to be as successful as the Maketu officers have been, wide experience and knowledge of the infinitely varied sections of the P. & T. departments, are essential. Add to this considerable patience which the official needs to help folk fill in innumerable forms and explain so many of the department's regulations, and add again, that some knowledge, the more the better, of the Maori language is a necessity, then one realises that the postmaster or mistress is no ordinary citizen. And only for a few short weeks at peak holiday time is there an ‘assistant’. As with most Post Offices the mail seems to be the most important item of the day. Outward goes without much fuss, but half the resident population gathers with eager expectancy while the inward mail is being sorted, and departs with smiles or sighs. After school almost every child pops in to make sure there's nothing in ‘their box’, and here the advertising leaflet is really ‘something’ to them. The arrival of the high school bus brings a fresh influx of mailseekers, often the third or fourth member of the same family to ask for the day's mail—this for all those resident within a radius of one mile of the Post Office. Inward and outward telegrams are handled, often for people who are unknown names in such a holiday resort. All types of Post Office money transactions are carried out, registrations of vehicles, etc., sundry types of licenses, and when it is taken into account that as is often their custom, many Maoris are known by more than one name, it is easy to understand that the job of a