A postman has retired after almost fifty years of serving the local community.
Michael Carr retired fom Millom Royal Mail on Thursday, September 3, after joining when he was 18 in 1979.
The postie, who was born in Millom, spent 47 years delivering letters and parcels across the Cumbrian town but said the number of changes over the years had left many wanting to get out.
He said: “It’s just not working. No-one’s liking it. Everybody wants to leave. I was one of the lucky ones I could get out because I've got my pension at 65, which is Wednesday this week.
“People just want to get out. They don't want to be there anymore.”
Mr Carr backed claims made to the BBC earlier this year that parcels were being prioritised over letters which the Royal Mail have previously denied.
The 65-year-old also said that the most recent change means postal workers are doing ‘heavy and light’ days in which they alternate the number of letters taken to houses on each day.
A Royal Mail spokesperson said: “We thank our colleague for his years of service and wish him a happy retirement.
“We know how important both letters and parcels are to our customers and are committed to providing an excellent service.
"We are investing in our network and introducing new delivery arrangements to make deliveries more reliable and workloads fairer for our posties.”
But, Mr Carr wasn’t hopeful for the future of the postal service with the number of people leaving.
He said: “A lot of the knowledge is gone because there’s quite a few people retired and left and gone to other places after 20 to 25 years in the job.
“We need quite a lot of knowledge as they know all the rounds and stuff like that.
“If they come down to grassroots level and listened to us, then things would have been all right, but they didn't.”
There will be plenty Mr Carr will miss though, especially the times he shared with his colleagues in the mail room.
He said: “I'm going to miss all the banter down at work in the morning. We all have a laugh. It sorts of gees us on and gets us going and gets us through the day.”
He and his colleagues went to a local pub together on Saturday afternoon to celebrate and he’s hoping to see a few of them in the coming weeks.
“Theres quite a few new faces. And you just get to know them when you're sitting around waiting for the wagon to come,” said Mr Carr.
“They tell you their life stories and you tell them yours and they look at you and go ‘how many years have you done life?’ ‘47.’ ‘How the hell have you done that?’”
And it’s not just his colleagues that he’ll feel sad to leave behind.
Mr Carr said: “I'll miss all my customers. They've got some lovely cards, written in them like ‘Thank you for being a cheery man. I look forward to your crack and having a smile on your face and enjoying your job.’
He said it was the personal lengths that he went to with customers that were appreciated most.
“I tended to look after them through the year. There were quite a few older people on the round. One of them, especially, was going blind,” said Mr Carr.
“And I opened their porch door and put the mail on a parcel on a shelf for them, rather than wang it through the door. I did that with quite a few customers.”
Ultimately, Mr Carr’s decision to retire came down to health reasons: “My knees are knackered, my feet are knackered.
“I’m walking around doing X amount of steps every day, by the time I get home, I’m absolutely wrecked.”
He already has plans to take advantage of a work-free life with trips as far away as Crete in the diary.
But, it won’t be all relaxing and putting his feet up now he’s retired.
Mr Carr said: “I’m sure my wife will find me things to do around the house.”