I AM writing to offer my support to former postal worker Ian Jennens and to give my own comments on the Royal Mail.

I worked for Royal Mail for 28 years and for about 20 of these I was more than happy with my job and the treatment from the management. Our customers were happy to see us, we would deliver their mail at roughly the same time each day, but now it would seem to me that the customer and the posties are of secondary importance to the Royal Mail’s all consuming drive to make a profit.

Gone are the days of the postie giving a service to their customers.

In fact one of my managers told a customer who had phoned to complain about the service she was receiving that “Royal Mail are no longer a service, we are a business”. Need I say more!

I used to start at 05.30 and be on the road by 08.00 at the latest, but nowadays most of them are not allowed to leave the office before 10.30am.

When I worked for Royal Mail I had to have, over a period of ten years, three operations on my knees, a possible cause being carrying heavy delivery bags, and each time I was given a warning for the length of time I was off on official sickness and still under the hospital surgeon.

I find it despicable that Royal Mail have the audacity to basically attempt to overrule a doctor’s medical certificate. I am still in touch with several of my “old”

work colleagues and to a man they all hate the way Royal Mail treats their workers now.

Although the pay-off I received when I accepted ill health retirement was very generous, I still feel, in general, that Royal Mail could and should treat their employees an awful lot better.

M R SMITH, Address supplied.