After unpopular changes to deliveries, a summer of disruptions and a national strike looming, has the British love affair with the postman started to falter?
Like the milkman and the paperboy, the postman has for years been part of every community's early morning ritual.
His red bicycle, with a bag of letters attached either side of the back wheel, has become an image of community life, and can be seen propped up against a gatepost or being wheeled alongside him as he walks door-to-door.
It's a job that has been held in great national affection. Regional newspapers relish tales of posties' life-saving heroics - resuscitating a choking nine-month-old boy, carrying a blind pensioner out of a burning house or spotting the jaundiced face of someone with liver disease, to name a few real-life events.A POSTIE IN THE 1950s
When John Jenkins began delivering mail in rural Worcestershire, he had the luxury of a helper to split the round. He said it was very much a public service that included picking up shopping and prescriptions for people. Fifty years later, and 12 months after retirement, he says: "It was a public service. I think postmen still have that attitude but they just don't have the time to do it."
Putting mail through 26 million front doors every day gives the postman unique access to every household, and it's a privilege that extends the responsibility of the job beyond one of delivery man, or woman, to - in some cases - neighbourhood watch, community guardian and social worker, rolled into one.
But the job appears to be under greater scrutiny than ever. For the last couple of months, agency staff have had to take over deliveries in parts of the country affected by the strikes. Managers have even stepped in to deliver letters and a national strike is expected to be announced.
The disruption has caused a backlog of mail estimated to be between four and 20 million pieces, and it's the latest fracture in the bond between postie and public. As the most visible face of the mail service, the postie, has become a target for much of the public's resentment over late birthday cards, missing wedding invites and overdue credit card statements.
A drive to modernise the service has already reduced the number of daily deliveries from two to one. The first letters used to drop through letterboxes before 7am, but now it's more likely to be 10am when most people are at work, , says one postman.A POSTIE IN THE 1980s
Bill Thomas, 78, retired in 1996 after 15 years. He was a reserve postman, which meant he didn't have his own round but covered colleagues' rounds in south-east London. "I knew all of them. When I used to deliver, they would come to the door and we'd have a chat. I was a servant to the people. I knew some of them by name and they knew me as Bill. I had a sack which I tied up with a piece of string and then put it on my shoulder and off I went at 7.30am, then back out with the second delivery at 10.30am."
That means many people don't even see their postman. Customers have also been infuriated by some postal workers dropping a collection card through the door rather than knocking to deliver a parcel. The postal workers' union admits this happens, but says its members do not have the the time to ring the doorbell and wait.
Dragging the postal service into the 21st Century has meant cutting more than 50,000 jobs since 2002, with more frontline postal workers expected to be culled. The Royal Mail says there have been no forced redundancies. Vans are slowly replacing bicycles - particularly unpopular in Cambridge - which means personal interaction is diminished. And competing postal firms like TNT, whose staff dress in orange, have taken over some "final mile" business deliveries.
More work, less time
The post generally has less significance to us. E-mails, mobile phone calls, text messages and online banking have meant the days when one waited anxiously for the postman to arrive with something important are fewer, although the upsurge in online shopping has offset part of the the drop in overall volume.
It was all so different when Alexander Alexander, 81, began delivering in the late 1960s in Edinburgh. The job often involved picking up prescriptions for people, reading gas meters and helping people with the odd domestic task. The police would consult postmen as a matter of course about crimes on their delivery routes, he recalls.A POSTIE IN THE 2000s
"I used to get Christmas cards and birthday cards and I knew all the people," says a postman who prefers to remain anonymous. "They would ask me in for tea or chocolate. If there was a wrong address or no number on a letter I knew where it would go. If I was on holiday they got the wrong mail. A lot of people live on their own and I liked to stop and talk. When I told one of them I was being moved the word spread and they started a campaign to stop it. But I was moved and I don't like my new round."
"For 10 years, I did the same walk which included Heart of Midlothian, my football team. I had 490 calls and a lot of stairs in the old tenements, carrying the bag.
"The postie was a mine of information. He knew when people were getting married, he even knew when their library book was overdue. Now people don't even know their postman's name. They are strangers to people, there doesn't seem to be the same continuity."
Fast-forward 50 years and it's a very different story. There's more work to do and less time to do it because of job cuts, says Mike, a postman with more than 20 years' experience of delivering in the south-east of England.
"When I started, the postman was part of the community, he knew everybody. That sort of thing has gone because all they are interested in now is getting the mail out. There just isn't enough time.
WHY THE STRIKES?
Royal Mail says a 10% drop in letters and parcels each year is losing it £170m per annum, so more job cuts likely and more machines to be introduced
Union accepts need for job cuts but resists them being imposed
Full Q&A on postal strikes
"I used to deliver in a village and I knew everyone. I could get £600 tips at Christmas. When I delivered to farms, instead of dropping the mail in a letterbox at the end of the long drive, I would take the letters, the newspaper and the milk all the way up the drive, walk into the house and put it on the kitchen table. I was that close to people."
The Communication Workers Union, which represents most of the 150,000 postal workers, says it would be alarmist to say postmen and women are suddenly strangers but many are under too much strain to stop and chat.
"Postmen and women are still delivering to every address, six days a week, so still getting the coverage but what we're noticing is that there's less time to do that work because there is more pressure," says a union spokeswoman.
"People have said that when they see their postman he's rushing from place to place and can't chat anymore. Royal Mail would say stopping to chat is not efficient. But postmen are working harder than ever before, handling 10% less mail with 30% less staff."
Critics would say workers in most other jobs have had to become more efficient - so why not posties?
The stories of Good Samaritan postmen show that many still have that community role, the CWU spokeswoman adds, but when they have enough trouble completing their own job, that sense of duty is under greater threat.
Journalist Clare Bates, a mother of three in Wiltshire, says for four years, until one month ago, postman Paul was the eyes and ears of the community.
"He was delivering solely for Army quarters and he had a really good understanding of the unique circumstances in which we live. One day when my husband was in Iraq, he became really concerned when I didn't answer the doorbell because he knew I was in.
"He started walking off but he turned round, came back and started banging on the door. Then he walked round the side of the house to the garage, where he found me.
"I was really touched that despite more and more pressure on postmen to be fast, he bothered to take the time to check."
