KEVIN Boniface is a bit worried about the photograph supplied by his publisher.
“Is it the one where I’ve got spinach in my teeth?” he asks. “See if you can Photoshop it out, won’t you?”
Not being near my computer, I promise to have a closer look when I return to my desk.
The image was taken by his photographer sister-in-law Jo Shaw. “She probably did it on purpose,” says Kevin.
The little exchange between us is almost worthy of one of the observations contained in Kevin’s book Lost in the Post.
He’s been an operational grade delivery officer (postman) in Huddersfield for the last 10 years or so.
Early on he began keeping a diary as he was keen not to miss anything important, such as changing seasons or hairstyles.
Edited entries form the basis of his new book – a random collection of short and whimsical observations on the strangeness of the everyday life he witnesses on his daily rounds.
There is the Holme Close resident who sweeps his lawn with a dustpan and brush, the old buffer whose dream is to look inside the Grimscar post-box and the “wobbly New Age Romantic” who shows off in front of his Burberry-clad companion by trying to balance on bollards.
And then there is Rod Singleton, immortal sage of the smoking room and dispenser of wisdom on everything from plasma TVs to rabbit stew to Christina Aguilera.
Each page varies from a single line to four or five paragraphs.
There’s the postmistress woman who suddenly asks: “Have you always had a beard, or is it just me?”
And two teenage girls who asked if they could touch his van for luck. “I said they could. They touched the post box too.”
Kevin, 38, set himself the goal of writing about 10 things every day that he had seen while at work on Huddersfield’s streets.
“The test was whether I could still remember them at the end of the day,” he says.
The book is illustrated with photographs by Jo Shaw and her husband Christoph, who live in Manchester.
From butchers proudly posing with the day’s offering to back street hairdressers’ drab window displays or boarding houses advertising their lack of a sea view, they have come up with a series of iconic images that show Britain at its most odd and its most ordinary.
Kevin says: “We decided on one drunken night to put it together as a project which was just a tiny publication, almost a fanzine.
“It seemed to be popular and it just grew from there.”
A concept book for sale at art galleries followed and now proper publisher Old Street Publishing has taken up Lost in the Post.
It’s getting a bit of a cult following with fans saying it captures the essence of British life.
Kevin has even had the novel experience of a signing session at Borders Books at Junction 27 retail park in Birstall.
He says: “That was novel. I’d never done anything like that. No-one had ever heard of me and I was under no illusions.
“Unfortunately, they positioned me near the children’s section and there I was with my books which contain a number of rude words. It didn’t seem right. Parents were trying to stop their children flicking through them.”
Yet another passage which could grace Lost in the Post.
And, by the way, we had a good look at the photograph of Kevin. The teeth seemed fine. We couldn’t see any spinach.
Lost in the Post, by Kevin Boniface, is published in hardback by Old Street Publishing at £8.99.
