In Feb 1970 there was a flu epidemic (1)

Retired Members 

In Feb 1970 there was a flu epidemic. Lots of people were off sick. The Chief Inspector sped through the interview to recruit the three of us sitting in front of him: Mick G, Mick B and me.

There was a closed shop in those days.  Len, a UPW rep, signed us on. So that was that.  We were postmen in Warwick and Leamington.

No training.  Turn up on Monday at 5 am to get a locker, some uniform, security badges and sign the Official Secrets Act.  Then out on delivery in Milverton, I was told.

“Where?”

“Aren’t you from Leamington?”  “No.  I only arrived here two weeks ago, when we got a flat here. I don’t know the place.”

“Someone will set in the delivery and tell you where to start.”

Go to the Coventry Arms on Rugby Road. Do Gunnery Terrace and the streets around there and keep going until you’ve finished all the bundles.

I delivered down Rugby Road to a terrace by the river and pressed on over the bridge looking for Quarry Street. No sign of it. I soon came to an Emscote Road Post Office.  I asked inside. They said, “This is Warwick mate, you’re in the wrong town.  Leamington is over the bridge”.

50 years later I told this story when giving evidence to the Boundaries Commission who had to recommend whether or not to split the Warwick and Leamington parliamentary constituency.

Back to 1970.  Leamington was a delivery and a despatch office.  The Head Post Office covered Warwick, Shipston on Stour and many small rural delivery offices.

The delivery office was temporarily in an old newspaper office in Bedford Street with a vehicle maintenance garage next door. (An Inspector had posted a large notice “Exit from the inside only.”)

The outward office and admin, Head Postmaster, Personnel, Wages (we were paid in cash) were at Priory Terrace by the River Leam.

There were 4 UPW Branches.  No 1 for Counters and Admin, No 2 for Outward and Delivery, Day Tels and Night Tels.

The No 2 Branch had some 150 members. Mostly full-time but some part-time evening sorters. There were cleaners and doorkeepers at the Telephone Exchange. There were three telegraph boys, van collections, cycle, foot and van deliveries, and station duties.  Most of us were on a three-shift pattern (earlies, lates, nights).  Outward mail was despatched to Birmingham by road (driver and escort) on a vehicle which returned with inward mail.

I sometimes did the escort job.  The regular driver was called “Boots”; his substitute “Long Blink.” He had a day job somewhere.

(We ‘sold’ the station duties in a bonus scheme years after all mail went by road).

Sunday working was compulsory; as was up to 12 hours overtime.  New entrants (me) were on incremental scales for many years before reaching the full rate of pay for the grade.

It was a diverse workforce: a telegraphist; more women than men on Counters/Admin. In Postal, more men than women; many ex-service people (corporals, a sergeant (Gordon), the Captain (Burma Star), a former Japanese POW, ex-navy (‘Ships’) and WWII Polish and Czech refugees. There were Sikhs, Hindus, mixed Irish (Hughie) and English (Len was a cockney) with some Scots.

In Leamington there was a Chief Inspector, two Inspectors and several Assistant Inspectors. When the Chief Inspector came on the floor, Frank, ex-national service, would shout ‘Eyes Right, foreskins tight, bollocks to the rear’.

Katie, my section mate, complained: ‘The language in this place is fucking awful.’

It was a time of shortages, the three-day week, and power cuts. “O Ministry of Fuel and Power, save us in this darkened hour,”

In January 1971 we started a 7-week postal strike.  The story is told by Sean Ryan (London) and Dave Chapple (Bridgewater) CWU: The Great Post Office Strike of 1971

In the 90’s I represented Dave at a National Appeal panel.  By which time I worked out that I had spent more than 12 months of my “service” on strike.

It was during the ’71 strike that I became a UPW Committee member in the No 2 Branch.  There was no training, but deep-rooted solidarity and comradeship.  Len, Hughie, and Gordon were the Branch officers. Len’s advice to me (which I have never forgotten) was to “Keep both ears to the ground.”

Retired Member Officer: Dennis McWilliams