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JANUARY 2019 • ISSUE 65 • www.thescarboroughreview.com • Covering Filey and Hunmanby
Working To Encourage Wildlife In To Every Garden Mowing•Trimming•Planting•Weeding•General garden clearance•Bird boxes•Tips and advice
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Posties deliver 100,000 letters and packets a day 4
BOXING DAY RAFT RACE
NEW YEAR’S DAY DIP
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DOG SHOW @ THE SPA
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Words and photo by Dave Barry
through the year, Alan says. Most of Scarborough’s Working at an letters are office doesn’t m e c h a n i c a lly usually entail much sorted by physical exertion. scanner and Working at Royal postcode in Mail’s sorting office York and arrive in Aberdeen Walk, in boxes, ready Scarborough, is a for delivery. All notable exception. the mail which In the busy prehas to be sorted Christmas peak manually, period, the 125 staff including received, sorted a n y t h i n g and delivered without a nearly 100,000 L-R, Simon Link, Paul Robinson and Steve King with the mayor and mayoress (to order p o s t c o d e , letters and packets photos ring 353597) comes from a a day. to the higher volume of cards and The posties - about 110 men and before the sorting machines, a night big Royal Mail centre in Leeds. 15 women - walk about 10 miles a shift of up to 30 staff would sort all Another big change involves the amount of cash handled by Royal day in whatever the weather has to the mail by hand. Mail. Not too long ago, six and even throw at them. Times have changed. When manager In town, they used to use cycles but Alan Gilbank joined Royal Mail seven-figure sums were stashed now they push large unmotorised some 30 years ago, the volume of in huge floor-to-ceiling, walk-in trolleys weighing about 70 kilos up letters was far higher - the company safes and paid out in pensions, state benefits, etc. Now, just one and down hills. was handling about 125,000 letters safe remains and is used to store In outlying areas such as Newby, and packets a day. Eastfield and Hackness, two travel “The big change is letters”, he says. cleaning materials. Early one morning just before together in a van. “We’ve gone from masses of letters At Christmas, many staff start at and packets to mostly packets”. Christmas, the borough mayor 5am to sort the extra packets and December witnessed the annual and mayoress, Joe and Margaret larger volume of cards which cannot peak of about 10,000 packets a Plant, visited the sorting office be done by machine. In the past, due day, which falls to around half that to see how the operation runs. Continued on page 2.