WHAKATANE POST OFFICE HANDLES RECORD XMAS MAIL

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 13, Issue 36, 22 December 1948, Page 5

WHAKATANE POST OFFICE HANDLES RECORD XMAS MAIL

The biggest volume of Christmas mail ever handled is now passing through the Whakatane post office. In an endeavour to get it all away by Friday the post office, staff is working long hours but from present indications it will be some time before a decrease can be expected. , / On Monday morning the incoming mail fairly swamped the rather cramped facilities at the Whakatane post office. Letters and parcels lay strewn everywhere, Ailing the mail room, reaching in high piles to the ceiling and spilling through the doors outside. There was mail of al shapes and sizes, with quite a collection of broken parcels. The broken parcels consisted mainly of Christmas presents, soaps, scents and powders dominating the array. One parcel containing three cakes of scented soap was completely ruined, but* luckily the address was saved and it will now be delivered before Christmas, if time can be found to repack it.. Mans of’the letters tested the ingenuity of the sorters in finding some place to put them. They were addressed of course,' but the addresses on some were about as much use as water to a dead fish. This is no exageration. There was one addressed to a certain person in Whakatane. How the post office was to find him no one seems to know but it raised a laugh, even amongst the hardened postal officials. This is the little effort. Mix , c/,- (Forget address), Please Mr Postman you will know where to find him—he gets lots of 1 pftPT^ WHAKATANE. The name of the addressee is left out for obvious reasons, but the letter was delivered. During this week the volume of mail to be handled will still be very high, and it is not expected to ease up until well into the New Year.