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Red letter day for local postman
29.04.09
Well-wishers give
Callaghan the stamp of approval
by Simon McGeady, Inishowen
Independent
HE'S ONE of the most recognisable faces in the
greater Newtowncunningham area, but now the time has
come for local postman Gerald Callaghan to leave the
postal service.
Callaghan delivered his final letter on Friday the
17th of April, two days before his 65th birthday,
the cut-off age for postmen.
Prior to his farewell do at Pairc Colmcille on
Saturday evening Callaghan talked briefly to the
Inishowen Independent about his 43 years delivering
mail.
“It’s going to be strange not getting up at 5am
every morning. I will miss the daily contact with
the local pensioners, who I have got to know well
and done a wee bit extra for over the years. To have
that daily contact severed will be strange. I’ll
have to think about doing a wee sideline to keep me
occupied,” said Mr Callaghan. |
After five years of
manual labour in Scotland (first as a farm hand,
then at the Clydebank docks, where he had a small
hand in the construction of the QEII) the 22 year
old Callaghan returned home and, as luck would have
it, an opening at Newtown post office presented
itself.
“Back in 1966 a guy in Newtowncunningham went
‘through the hoops’ and he lost his job. I replaced
him in May of that year, as an auxiliary postman
first on a 30 hour week.”
After the postmistress divvied out the mail, off on
his iron bike would the young Gerald go, full
satchel strung over his back, whistling as he
worked. |
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“I didn’t mind riding
the bike, and I knew the area like the back of my
hand. In those days I was responsible for delivering
mail from the south east of Newtown and on through
the townlands of Dooish, Monreagh, down as far as St
Johnston. I was on the bike for six years, then,
when [senior postman] James Toye died in 1974, I was
given his route as well. They gave me a car
allowance and with it I bought a 1970 Volkswagon
beetle. Then, in 1978, I was taken on full time.”
The years have seen some changes to the way mail is
handled. The introduction of bar-coding in 1980 was
a big change for Gerry, but the biggest upheaval of
his mail-man days came six years ago when he was
reassigned from the sub-office in Newtown to the
mail centre in Lifford.
The strangest item he ever had to deliver was a
whole turkey a local was posting to family in
England.
“I often wondered how it would keep, but in those
days a parcel took three days to go to England, now
it can be ten days,” joked the jovial pensioner.”
Gerry is proud of the fact that in 42 years and
eleven months, he has only taken one week of sick
leave, and that was in Christmas 1990 when he passed
out from exhaustion and doc’s ordered were to take
it easy over the next week. |
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