This is my 50th post, and I’m dedicating it to my postman.

I don’t know his name, but he’s been delivering the mail in the 6-plus years that I’ve lived here, and probably 30 years before that in my adopted home town. Always good natured, he’s as reliable as the bad weather that he cycles through to get the stuff delivered. I think he does half the town.

It’s almost like he’s from another age, part of the scenery, known to all and respected by all in the same way as every village’s PC Plod used to be.

I remember reading a book by Rob Parsons called The Heart of Success a few years ago. I’m going to quote you a slice of it:

“One night when my father was getting ready for work I interrupted him: ‘Don’t you ever get bored of just pushing letters through doors?’

“If I hurt him he didn’t show it. He said, ‘Son, your father delivers the Royal Mail.’ He made it sound like the Queen herself had asked him to do it. ‘People rely on me – businesses, armies and police forces, friends and relatives from overseas – I deliver all their letters. You should come with me some day and see somebody waiting at their door to see if I’ve got a letter for them. It may be about a job they’ve been hoping for or from a daughter they haven’t heard from for a while, or perhaps just a birthday card. No, son, I don’t get bored.'”

I reckon my postman has hand-delivered 1,000 letters and parcels to me in the last year. The postal service has already been paid for every single delivery he makes, before he delivers it. He still does it well, and with a smile on his face.

That’s why I tip my postman. Merry Christmas.