SANTA’S real little helpers have been working away at Weston’s Royal Mail sorting office to make sure everyone gets their fair share of Christmas cheer this year.
The town’s MP, John Penrose, visited the team at the office in Warne Road to pass on his Christmas wishes at their busiest time of year.
Mr Penrose said: “There is a huge amount of effort and dedication that goes into delivering a first class Christmas at Royal Mail’s busiest time of year. It was great to meet the team here at Weston.
“Our postal workers do such an important job at this time of year and I would like to thank them for their efforts and wish them all the best over the busy festive period.”
The Mercury got the chance to catch up with one of the post office’s long-serving postal workers, Sarah Isles, who said workloads increase substantially in December.
She said: “Christmas is great. The workload more than doubles. The majority is parcels; we do get a lot more cards but three or four extra Christmas cards for each house isn’t a lot, parcels are the ones which give you the backache.”
Sarah told the Mercury the average postie will walk between eight and 12 miles a day, walking for four hours to get around their route.
She said: “Normally we would have about three quarters of a bag full of post, today we had three full bags.
“It’s obviously heavy work and we finish at about 4pm. Full-timers start their shifts at 6am.”
Weston’s Royal Mail Delivery Office manager, Dan Riddle, said: “Our postmen and women are working extremely hard to deliver Christmas cards, letters and parcels to people across Weston.
“We are grateful that John visited the office to see our operation and to support the team.
“We’d like to remind our customers to post early so that friends and family have longer to enjoy their Christmas greetings. We would also like to ask everyone to please always use the postcode as this helps us greatly at this busy time.”
People are being asked to post early for Christmas.
The last recommended posting date is today (Monday) for first class mail and Wednesday for special delivery items.
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here