FORTY YEARS' SERVICE.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1747, 12 May 1913, Page 3

FORTY YEARS' SERVICE.

RETIREMENT OF MR. E. C. GANNA- . WAY. FROM THE POST OFFICE. Ono of the best known and most popular officers of the Post and Telegraph Department in Wellington, Mr. Edward C. Gannaway, the Assistant-Postmaster, has retired from the service. "After-'nearly forty years in the Wellington office, it is not surprising that I should retire," said Mr. Gannaway to a Dominion representative. "I have been in the service nearly 40 years—perhaps 39 would bo nearer the mark. I joined it in Wellington, and I liavo never been out of it, and it is a fairly busy place. Besides, I want to liavo a spell before my time comes" Everyone who knows Mr. Gannaway will join in the desiro that it may bo a long and happy spell. Mr. Gannaway's experience in the postal service has been a unique one. From tile time lie was a cadet with only a fow months' fcxperience up till the timo ho was promoted to be Assistant-Postmaster five years ago, ho was entrusted with the key of the. mailroom, and, looking back over the years, ho cannot but marvel how lie, as "a mere youth, was frusted in such a manner, and )iow he was loaded witli such a responsibility. When he joined the working ■mail-room slaff in February, 1875, it consisted of only four persons, in addition to which there were two letter-carriers to distribute the letters throughout the town. Now there are over 100 hands in the mail-room, and between GO and 70 letter-carriers. Although complainings are heard now and again about the work at the Post Office in rush times, Mr. Gannaway says that the conditions are infinitely better to-day than when he was young in the service. It was no very uncommon experience for the extremely limited staff of the '70's and early 'SO's to work twenty hours at a stretch to get through a big English mail. The steamers arrived less frequently then than now, and the accumulated mails made a very heavy load when they did arrive, as for instance, when Wellington was connected with Panama by a paddle-boat service. Some of tlus older residents will remember the old Nebraska and Nevada, which • used to thrash their way across the Pacific in the late '70's. The arrival of one of those boats was an event in those days —at least, it was. to young Gannaway, who was'forced to miss a lot of sleep in ' order to attend to her Majesty's mails. No overtime was paid then, either. What would the cadet of to-day think in these davs of motor-wagons, if he wero asked to trundle a hand-cart up and down tho wharf, and sort mails for eighteen hours on end—without tlio prospcct of a penny overtime? Mr. Gannaway believes that'he (the cadet) would drop dead. Over thirty years ago two of the staff, at least, bad to" be at the office at !l-M a.m. to prepare the mails on Mondays and Thursdays for the AVanganui coach, which left, via Porirua, Plimmcrton, and the beach, at 5 a.m. The coaches were owned by tho lalo Mr. Andrew Young, and one "of his drivers was Mr. A. Hall, formerly proprietor of the Wellington horse tram service, and now engaged in ! the Bealoy-Otira coach service. A coach also left for the Wairarapa, via the llutt, at G o'clock every morning, so that half the staff ha;l to be down at 5.30 a.m. every day—summer and winter. Jii those days the Post Office was ail old wooden building at the foot of the old Queen's Wharf. The structure was not even weatherproof, and when it rained hard, as in a big southerly, such us wo have been having lately, there was a good deal of manoeuvring to get .a dry place to work in.