What time do you get your mail ?

[amateur51]

Post arrives here around 9.30 - never later than 10.00.

My brilliant postie of eight years' standing retired a couple of years back. I thought I would never see his like again. The young chap who took over the round is equally good - and he scribbles a note for me if he's left something in the 'hidey-hole'. His occasional 'sub' is good too, but is inclined to leave the gate open....... which can be disastrous in this area where sheep roam free. Even so, I think the Royal Mail serve me pretty well.

Each Christmas I give my postie (what I hope is) a decent cash present, as my parents did before me. I intend it as genuine appreciation, not a bribe. Do others do that, or is it a dying tradition?

I do it, decantor - a heartfelt thank you for turning out in all weathers and for being so cheerful

[Petrushka]

Getting later and later here...

Not all that many years ago the post used to arrive at 7.10 on the dot just before I set off for work. Now it is very erratic, but usually anytime between 10.30 and 11.30. However, two days last week it came after 1.30.

I have an album of postcards dating back to 100 years ago and the messages on them make it quite plain that the postcard would arrive at its destination that same day. People clearly treated them as we treat texting for most of the messages are banal in the extreme but very fast delivery was definitely the norm. Banal they may be but a fascinating glimpse into a bygone era nonetheless.

[salymap]

One of my late aunts wrote to her boy friend and also to her sister on postcards every day. She always got a reply the same day by a later post. The family still have her cards, posted in rural Kent as she cycled around. There must have been at least four posts a day by the look of it.

My post can come any time between 10am and 2pm now.

[antongould]

Slipped since Napoleon 3's day one presumes?

[mercia]

rarely before 4pm. I tell myself it is tomorrow's post sorted early.

[Roehre]

I have an album of postcards dating back to 100 years ago and the messages on them make it quite plain that the postcard would arrive at its destination that same day. People clearly treated them as we treat texting for most of the messages are banal in the extreme but very fast delivery was definitely the norm. Banal they may be but a fascinating glimpse into a bygone era nonetheless.

It's the equivalent of present day's email / facebook/ twitter culture.

Within London until the late 1920s there were 6 (SIX) rounds of delivery daily, with exception of Sundays (none).
It was possible to drop a letter or card into a mailbox by 8am, get an answer by 12noon, reply by 2pm, and get an answer to that by 6pm, e.g. an invitation for dinner that same night .

AFAIK deliveries started at 6am (mail dated the day before and from outside London) and ended shortly before midnight (cards marked 08-12pm from London, or upto 08pm from outside).

I've got a post card which was sent from Barh and delivered in Edinburgh within 12 hours the very same day.

Musically interesting: the work at the Night Mail Trains was filmed and this documentary set to music by Benjamin Britten.

[amateur51]

rarely before 4pm. I tell myself it is tomorrow's post sorted early.

[Norfolk Born]

It's the equivalent of present day's email / facebook/ twitter culture.

Within London until the late 1920s there were 6 (SIX) rounds of delivery daily, with exception of Sundays (none).
It was possible to drop a letter or card into a mailbox by 8am, get an answer by 12noon, reply by 2pm, and get an answer to that by 6pm, e.g. an invitation for dinner that same night .

AFAIK deliveries started at 6am (mail dated the day before and from outside London) and ended shortly before midnight (cards marked 08-12pm from London, or upto 08pm from outside).

I've got a post card which was sent from Barh and delivered in Edinburgh within 12 hours the very same day.

Musically interesting: the work at the Night Mail Trains was filmed and this documentary set to music by Benjamin Britten.

This is the Night Mail /Crossing the Border...I discovered only a few years ago that the sorting 'action' was filmed, not on the train, but on a specially constructed set.

[mercia]

we used to spend family holidays in Devon near the main London-Penzance railway line and used to go out at night to watch the mail being sorted as the train went by

[Don Petter]

Later and later here too. Now often 11.30 or after, so that 'waiting in for the post' usually means a wasted morning.
Saturday is the exception, for some reason, when it comes at about 9.00.

I echo others' observations on the postpeople themselves. Very friendly, cheerful and helpful (any faults seem to be with the organisation, not the front-line staff).

[pilamenon]

rarely before 4pm. I tell myself it is tomorrow's post sorted early.

Really?? I didn't think they would still be doing their rounds late afternoon. Are you very remote?

It's striking how many people seem, as I do, to receive their mail quite late in the morning, around 11.30 to midday-ish. Have postal hours been changed to make them less anti-social?

[mercia]

Are you very remote?

not at all, in a town, but up a hill at the end of a longish cul-de-sac, which I think may be the reason.
mind you, last Christmas they had a 3-month backlog of parcels so there could be "issues" at the sorting office.

[Alison]

Why do you ask Alison, you got problems?

Here in Chelmsford we all got a letter several months ago stating that new arrangements were in place.
We would lose our own postie, expect to see lots of different faces and delivery time would be anything up to late afternoon.

For some while after that was exactly what happened and deliveries between 4.00 - 5.30 became usual.

This caused a furore and lots of letters to the local press.

I have recently noticed that deliveries are now around the far more congenial time of 10am, particularly pleasing
when you are taking a few days off work and expecting some exciting new release parcels :)

[handsomefortune]

Musically interesting: the work at the Night Mail Trains was filmed and this documentary set to music by Benjamin Britten.

i saw the same film, as part of alan bennet's 'a habit of art' (national production).... the film looked and sounded fantastic.

[burning dog]

The Royal Mail abolished the "second" post but what they really meant was the EARLY post.