Dear Messenger
After three years delivering mail in the Rutland Road and surrounding district I have ‘warmed’ to the area and the people, although it hasn’t been without some unusual experiences.
Within the first month of starting work in the area, I noticed several prostitutes. This was something I had never encountered before and one of them would accost me as I went about my deliveries. However some of the older ones were quite amicable and conducted themselves in a ‘respectable’ way. They seemed to disappear as time went on. One woman I saw told me that she no longer engaged in the business at all, not I imagine through a guilt or conscience but rather that she simply ‘retired’ from it.
Another experience I had was early on Tuesday morning (the mail is always light on Tuesdays) walking down Rising Street into Fox Street, I was confronted by armed marksmen. I left by the way I had come in response to the frantic waving of one of the men to make myself scarce. The following day I found out nothing had actually happened, but the armed unit had to be there as the man they subsequently arrested had a gun.
As to my favourite part of the delivery, it certainly isn’t the Nottingham Cliffe, Andover Street, Pye Bank Road (what’s left of it!) area, although there are a number of friendly people who live there who offer me refreshments from time to time.
I like Wood Fold, which is a quaint, almost out-of-the-way, little lane that leads down from Rutland Road onto Pitsmoor Road. One then encounters a few fine old houses that have stood the test of time admirably.
There are all kinds of people who live in the area, such as doctors, musicians, translators and all manner of other distinguished professions, to the extent that the area is on a par with any other respectable area in the city. Would I want to live here? Yes, I probably would, judging by what I have observed on a daily basis, although my period of scrutiny is always by force of circumstance confined to the mornings and so I cannot account for what occurs in the afternoon and evenings.
I would be happy to keep on delivering here until I retire, which won’t be for quite a while yet. Hopefully, my length of service will be a good bargaining tool in staying put in any subsequent reselection of duties. But that cannot be for certain. Perhaps the duty itself will be dissolved, as happened to my previous one. Who knows? I hope not to finish up too far away.
Christopher Wibberley, Gleadless