First class delivery remembered

[TrueBlueTerrier]

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ALL through their careers addresses played a major part of the job, but one in particular will be the focal point on Friday.

It is time for the next reunion of former Swansea postal workers and the address in question is just about opposite where the city's old main post office used to be in Wind Street.
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So they will gather at Swansea Railmen's Club at lunchtime to swap tales of how it used to be.

People like Ken Gabriel, an ex-postman who started in Wind Street on January 1, 1947, and who is looking forward to the biannual gathering now in its 24th year. He has once again organised it in company with Tom Gibbins and Russell Owen.

"We have a thing called the Friday Club where we meet in the Railmen's Club every Friday from 2-4pm," he said. "But we have a full Christmas reunion and one in the summer. We were originally Telegraph Messengers delivering telegrams until 1951. Then I did National Service and in 1953 I became a postman. I retired in 1991.

"The date was January 1, 1947, when 10 14-year-old schoolboys became 10 14-year-old Telegraph Messengers, more popularly known as Telegram Boys. Most boys wore short trousers in those days unless they were lucky enough to have an older brother's hand me downs.
"We were all measured for our uniforms and issued with an official armband, a leather belt with a pouch to hold the telegrams and a brass buckle with the inscription DU ET MON DROIT, which I believe means For King and Country.

"The first two days we were taken out on 'runs' with one of the older messenger boys to learn the different areas of the town and then we were on our own.

"When our uniforms finally came through they were made from a very coarse navy blue material with a thin red line down the side of the trousers and around the collar on the jacket. It was also around the edge of the hat which was of the pill box type. We all hated wearing it and stuffed it inside our jackets as soon as we got out of sight of the office.

"The serge trousers rubbed your legs raw in the winter and the dye ran in the rain, so you ended up with blue chapped legs!"

There were around 70 messengers in the Swansea area at that time, based in Mumbles, Sketty, Townhill, Fforestfach and Kingsway, with the majority in Wind Street.

"Everyone had to attend day school once a week and night school twice a week," said Ken, who lives in Sandfields.
He recalled the emphasis in those days on discipline.

"We used to come in at 8am and we had to make sure our brasses — belt, badges — and boots were shiny and clean," he said. "If they were not you were sent home and told to come back for later duty, or you had a two hour punishment, which meant working unpaid for two hours. It was run on military lines.

"They were ex-servicemen and old messengers in my day, so they were used to discipline."

Barry Griffiths, from Killay, agreed. He was a telegram messenger from 1955-59, and later a postman in Wind Street, Sketty and Penlan.

"One day one of the boys came back from the first postal delivery — there were two in those days — and his serge trousers with red stripes had got soaking wet," he said.

"He put on a pair of black jeans he had for the second delivery but the inspector sent him home to change into his spare pair. I think standards have slipped now."

Barry also remembers a regular chore in memory of Gower's Antarctic explorer Edgar Evans, who accompanied Captain Scott on his ill-fated journey to the South Pole.

"Edgar Evans was a former telegram boy who had a brass plaque up in the Rutland Street office," he said.
"We had to polish it once a week."

[Lounge Lizard]

"DU ET MON DROIT, which I believe means For King and Country." - It's 'dieu' not d'u' and means "God and my right" or 'Duw a fy hawl' not 'For King and Country'