Growth of the Post Office

I moved to Bletchley in 1963, transferring from Western District Post Office to Bletchley Post Office under the GLC housing programme. I was a postman at the time.In those days Bletchley was a rural area with a population of 40 thousand. The staffing at the sorting office was 40. The staff on the Town rounds all had bicycles and the postman on night duty had to cycle and deliver a part of Newton Longville before finishing his duty. All of the surrounding area, which was rural, was covered by vans .The area stretched from Salford, Wavendon, Milton Keynes Village to Mursley and Thornton.All the mail for Buckingham, Newport Pagnell and Wolverton came through the Bletchley Sorting Office and then was transferred to these offices by vans at 4.30 in the morning.

Growth of the new city

Since then, Milton Keynes has grown into a large city. The many houses, offices, and factories have meant the Post Office has increased in size. As well as two extra delivery offices at Dane Road and Brinklow, the Dawson Road Office, which is a mechanised distribution office, has invested in extra coding machines for local deliveries as well as outward mail for the rest of the country. Once the mail is sorted the local mail is transported to all of the offices mentioned above. The outward mail is also despatched by road transport, rail or plane.

An extract from the My Memories website – a collection of stories and memories written by a a group of learners on a Living Archive creative IT course.