In Britain are or were post offices more like a general store and a post office in the general sense or is it just the term means something different?
Posted by basil_witch87@reddit | AskABrit | View on Reddit | 92 comments
I’ve heard 2 separate instances recently where someone goes “to the post office” but they come out with food. Where I live a post office is only a place to send letters and packages or buy stamps and things of that sort. Example 1: on Time Team the host goes to the “post office” to buy lardy bread. Example 2: Ariadne Oliver goes to the “post office” to buy a bag of apples. (Agatha Christie, Mrs McGinty’s Dead)
Chance-Presence5941@reddit
Small convenience stores sometimes contain a small post office which services the local area for sending parcels and for certain financial services (cheque cashing, payment of bill and fines, sometime a bureau de change).
In every case where a shop is also a post office, a post office sign is displayed prominently outside, and while the business may change hands it, the building will usually continue to contain a post office and over time, this leads to it being more widely known as "the post office" than Spar, Co-op, Londis or whatever family name is above the door.
These post offices are actually sub pot offices off the local larger distribution centre which is usually close to a railway or major road. Most large towns do also have 1 or more dedicated Post Offices, and in fact many of the smaller local ones are sadly disappearing as paper mail is dying out. Its It's also
MichaelFuery@reddit
Were theres novels set during ww2 if so then in case you didn't know during ww2 post offices were used as banks hence why in ww2 criminals would tend to rob post offices i don't know if they sold food during that time but I would asume so given all the rationing Britain did e.g. Ration book
samrxsee@reddit
My local is a post office inside a convenience store
byjimini@reddit
Depends really; I live in a city now and the Post Offices are like convenience shops (which I would expect in the countryside), whereas the countryside PO’s I visited when I lived out in the sticks sold stationary rather than food stuffs.
Puzzlepetticoat@reddit
In my town we have a standalone post office which is actually pretty rare these days. This is in a very old building and sells some party decorations, cards and stationary plus packing supplies. We have a bigger one (the main one for our town) inside WHSmiths which is a big chain store that sells books, stationary, art supplies, magazines and then also some drinks and snacks. We have lots that are inside small newsagents (sweets, drinks, snacks, cards and maybe a few essentials like bread, milk and sugar and also magazines and newspapers). Then lots that are inside smaller convenience stores, think like a bodega without a food counter or maybe similar to a 7/11 perhaps.
Only the last ones really sell more in the way of food outside of grab and go snacks, sweets and drinks etc.
basil_witch87@reddit (OP)
It sounds like there would be more of a distinction as far as saying where you were going then? If you needed something you’d find in WHSmiths, would you say “I’m going into the post office to get (apples)”? Or you’d just say!you were running into the store?
Puzzlepetticoat@reddit
For me it depends on the purpose of the visit. So if I was going to the Post Office counter (usually they are a separate counter in the stores with a different cashier) I would say I am going to the Post Office. If I was going in the same shop for... I dunno, a book or a drink I would say I am going to Smiths or to the Sweet Shop or whatever that store is as a whole. I would never say I am going to the post office unless I am going to the post office specific counters. Might just be how we do things here in South West England though. I don't know about nationally.
Puzzlepetticoat@reddit
One more thing. If I was doing both, I would still generalise it as going to the post office. This is because generally the Post Office counters have queues and are considered a bit of a faff to use to so I would always say I am going to the Post Office if actually using those services so people can know I may rake a while and also in case anyone else wants me to do anything post office specific for them while there.
basil_witch87@reddit (OP)
Thanks for the detailed distinctions! Makes sense. Although what does faff mean? It sounds like something that would be considered annoying or more of a chore/bother.
Puzzlepetticoat@reddit
That's exactly it
Puzzlepetticoat@reddit
As an add on. In near all the places here, if you wanted say... to send a parcel and also to get a newspaper, you would have to queue at the post office counter for sending the parcel and separate at the regular counter to buy other goods. You can't send a parcel at the regular cashier and you can't buy snacks at the post office counter.
crucible@reddit
I’d say I was going to WH Smith, personally.
tunaman808@reddit
Are you from the US, OP? Because it used to be common in small towns for the main store to also be the post office. The Waltons got their mail at Ike Godsey's store on The Waltons, just like the Ingalls family got their mail at Olsen's store on Little House on the Prairie. The small town we lived in when I was a kid was like that for my grandma when she was a girl there in the 1930s. Only instead of Godsey's or Olesen's it was Snell's.
Hell, I have a friend who fell into financial issues and had to move into his grandparents' house in a tiny South Carolina town. As recently as 2001, the primary business in town was a gas station\diner that also served as a post office.
FUN FACT: I could send my friend letters and packages addressed to
And he'd get them.
basil_witch87@reddit (OP)
Yes, the US. I realize things used to be done that way long ago, I guess it was the more modern examples I’d recently that made me wonder how it was different in the UK. In my lifetime (I never lived in a small town or a rural area) the post office has always been just that and could I never imagine saying “I’m going to the p.o. to buy bread” so I thought, after the examples, maybe it used to be a p.o. and they just still call it that? or the term means something different than it means to me?
Secundum21@reddit
This was a bit of a culture shock to me—coming from a large US city where the Post Office is just that, and easily id’d by the (usually gigantic) flag out front, having a PO as a side hustle in a convenience store was quite new. I wasn’t sure I was in the right place at first and wondered where the “regular” Post Office was
Mop_Jockey@reddit
Post offices generally aren't standalone businesses because it's just not profitable.
What you have is either a small post office that's also like a small convenience store, or a small convenience store that also has a post office in it.
Impressive-Safe-7922@reddit
I've only rarely been into a post office that didn't at least sell a wide selection of greetings cards and assorted stationery, though where I previously lived the post office literally only sold envelopes and packing tape, which made for a very bare and sad looking shop compared to most branches.
Mop_Jockey@reddit
I've literally never seen a standalone post office that only dealt with mail.
Extension_Sun_377@reddit
We have one still in both Morecambe and Kendal, but the Lancaster one moved to WHSmith.
Grouchy-Nobody3398@reddit
We have one locally but it is located on a very large industrial estate.
littlerabbits72@reddit
Not even your main or general post office?
In fact, do General Post Offices even exist now?
caliandris@reddit
Many main post offices are like that in major towns? Small post office in our town has greetings cards and stationery, nothing else. When I lived in London there was a main post office within a branch of w.h.smiths and smaller post offices within newsagents and small corner shops.
Marble-Boy@reddit
There was one in my home town for decades. It just did the postal services, and sold paper/envelopes and stationary.
It's closed now, so we've got a "WHSmith" with a post office in it. It also triples as a sweet shop.
Panceltic@reddit
There are some around still (called Crown Post Office) – only around 100.
Fred776@reddit
The one that comes to mind was on the business park where I used to work. The business park was a bit away from anywhere convenient and a lot of people worked there, so the Post Office was always busy and I don't suppose it needed to do much else than focus on post office things.
Impressive-Safe-7922@reddit
It was bizarre - from outside, I wasn't sure they were still operating!
New_Pop_8911@reddit
Our post office pretty much only did post office things like envelopes and packing tape, until it was taken over a couple of years ago and it's now also an off license, from one extreme to the other lol
sim-o@reddit
We had a big standalone post office. Didn't realise how big it actually was until it closed and got turned in to a 'spoons
trainpk85@reddit
I’ve seen one and it’s a stand alone building on its own but shares a car park with a sainsburys with a few spaces blocked off for the post office. It’s depressing inside.
wildOldcheesecake@reddit
My local one is.
NotoriousREV@reddit
I used to live near one. It was attached to the sorting office. It’s the only one I’ve ever seen, though.
MadMuffinMan117@reddit
In addition to convenience stores I also know a pharmacy with a post office inside
SilverellaUK@reddit
In towns or cities there would be a main post office in the centre and smaller post offices in suburbs or villages that were called sub post offices. These were often amalgamated into a village shop.
Many have closed down now simply due to the fact that they were not used, and, of course, many closed down during the "post office scandal" when sub post masters/mistresses were the victims of faulty software installed by the post office and many went to jail.
freebiscuit2002@reddit
Some British post office counters are located in a general store, yes.
Kotetsu999@reddit
Ours was in a co-op
DifferentWave@reddit
A little village I lived in in the 90’s had a post office in someone’s front room. You walked in off the street straight into their living room and a makeshift counter stopped you going any further. They’d be eating their tea in front of Neighbours and they’d get up to sell you a Postal Order.
crucible@reddit
Just out of interest, where was that?
DifferentWave@reddit
A tiny little spot in Cumbria
crucible@reddit
Ah, OK. I was thinking of one in mid-Wales that sounded similar
basil_witch87@reddit (OP)
Oh, that’s very interesting, I can’t imagine! I have so many more questions lol
Timely_Egg_6827@reddit
Depends on the post office - some are small branches in shops like WhSmith. Some are stand-alone but tend to sell cards, boxes, sellotape and all the usual things you send by or need to send by post. And some in rural areas are little village shops where you can get all and sundry.
theoriginalross@reddit
Historically rural post offices have always been general stores of some kind. This can be food, alcohol, tobacco, stationary and all post office services including tax and banking.
There are inner city post offices which are usually in the back of some store or other and only do post office (including banking and tax) things.
Then there are sorting offices/ delivery depots that only do actual post based stuff.
There is a mild distinction between the post office (first two) and Royal mail (third one). Both seem to be interchangeable in most people's minds though.
spynie55@reddit
It’s a specific store.
Ok-Advantage3180@reddit
Most of the post offices by me are in shops. One is in a local corner shop, the other is in Tesco. I think there’s only one that is just a standalone post office
Azyall@reddit
I'm in my late 50s, and when I was a kid there were certainly dedicated post offices. They might have diversified a bit into selling stationery and greetings cards etc, but that was about it. Nowadays that model simply isn't commercially viable, so many have opened as counters in other shops, or have become general shops.
SensibleChapess@reddit
A bit of history:
The old General Post Office, (GPO), used to combine the mail operation, post office counters, telegrams, telephones, etc.
In the 1980s it was split up by Thatcher so as the profitable telecoms side could be privatised. That was sold as British Telecom, "BT". The remaining parts of the GPO became about 14 different companies I recall, (I worked there at the time).
The three biggest entities out of those 14 were, Royal Mail, Post Office Counters (eventually called Post Office Ltd, POLtd), and Parcelforce.
At the time, mid 1980s, the Post Office was the UKs largest handler and distributor of cash.
At the time, I recall, there were 1500 Crown Post Offices, (aka at the time 'Mains', or 'Branch Offices'), and about 22,000 Scale Payment Subpostoffices, (SPSO... aka 'subs').
Crown Post Offices were directly managed by POLtd and so the staff were all employees.
SPSOs were all privately owned and run. Subpostmasters were not employees, (think of them as very basic franchisees), but did have a unique legal status as regards National insurance!
SPSOs were all run by a Subpostmaster, mostly they ran one branch only but some ran more than one. The amount they got paid was based upon a alofung scale of 'remuneration' that was reviewed annually. This gace them a 'core payment' that was proportionately more the smaller the SPSO was. This meant that little rural post offices could remain open even when they didn't have many customers. However, a bigger urban office, with lots of customers, could be paid by earning pennies on each transaction they did and so the core part made up a smaller part of their overall PO income.
Smaller SPSOs were effectively heavily subsidised to meet legal obligations, such as "95% of people in rural areas had to live within 3 miles of a Post Office", etc. This was essential as POLtd was the number one distributor of cash, more than the banks and of course ATMs weren't a thing.
However, it was exceptional to be able to survive as a business solely on the remuneration being paid by POLtd. The way an SPSO would make money was via utilising the footfall coming in to make use of the 'break even' Post Office in their shop to increase their retail sales. The profit was in the shop, not running the Post Office.
As reliance on the traditional Post Office services declined, and as UKGov milked POLtd dry, (it was a limited company, within the wider 'Royal Mail Group' and UKGov was the sole shareholder), the businesses became ever less financially viable. Also, the rise of the supermarkets and branded convenience stores meant local shops weren't as central to customers as they once were.
POLtd sold off their Crown Offices. The resulting contract type was a 'Modified Scale Payment Office', (MSPO), to distinguish it from the traditional SPSO, but it was basically the same, just bigger.
There were other variations that came along, like Franchised Post Offices, (FPO).
Now there are about 11,000 privacy owned Subs and about 100 Crown Post Offices.
Throughout the 90s and beyond the Subs were screwed over and paid ever less for doing ever more. They were also deprived of all of the practical support, (training, auditing, advice, care, etc.), they used to have. They were treated like crap and managed on a shoestring due to UKGov bleeding POLtd dry.
The Horizon scandal is a symptom of this shameful destruction of a public service. The IT system itself wasn't the cause, (although that's the simple narrative we are told and, indeed, what many Subpostmasters think... but I lived through the changes from the 1980s to early 2010s and lived it first hand).
folkkingdude@reddit
Fascinating.
basil_witch87@reddit (OP)
Thanks, this was most interesting to me as I’d supposed there’s was some historical context around my question and wasn’t sure how to word it best or even tag it culture or history. The privatization of the service must be why I kept seeing it used in a way I’m not used to, being American, and how here it’s regulated by the government and has its own branding. So even if there’s a small USPS branch in a large grocery store, it has a separate counter and is completely independent of the business of the store it runs in.
SensibleChapess@reddit
Thanks! Yep, that's basically it.
It's a really interesting situation though.
Even though Post Office Limited is what we call here a 'Limited Company', which means it's not a Public Sector business, the only shareholder is UK Gov. It hasn't been privitised. The old GPO was broken up in the 1980s so as British Telecom could be privitised, and since then Royal Mail, (who pick up and deliver 'most' of the domestic post in the UK), have been privitised... but Post Office Ltd never was.
That's because there;'s nothing much to privitise. All you ever had was (1) Head Office, (2) countless little contracts with individual councils all over the country, (which were a pain in the arse!), (3) a few huge government contracts, (such as to pay Social Security benefits, pay the annual tax on every motor vehicle, to issue TV Licences to every household, etc.), and (4) The Crown Office Network, that was losing money and also all their buildings had been given to British Telecom before that was privitised to boost their property portfolio and increase their share price. The Crown Post Offices then rented their buildings back, even though they'd been built to house a Post Office and had been used by them for c.140yrs.
The vast majority of the Post Office Network has always been 'privately run' by Subpostmasters. So they couldn't be privitised as the business was already private! The Post Office basically just gave them a safe, a datestamp, a float of money and all the forms... everything else was paid for and owned by the Subpostmaster, (they had a big list of condistions and things they had to buy when they took on a Post Office).
Nowadays, with technology, along with an almost complete decline in the amount of cash they handle due to everything being card payments, (which means security isn't the issue it once was), and also a massive decline in people using Post Office services, (e.g. People pay bills via Standing Orders and Direct Debits set up by their banks, or they do their own bank transfers on theor phones, and Social Security payments go directly into people's bank accounts, etc.), this means that many Post Office Counters are now simply a second computer terminal next to the Retail Till hidden behind the piles of sweets and scratchcards in a local shop.
Blimey... I feel such a nerd going on about the Post Office!! :D
basil_witch87@reddit (OP)
I think it’s fascinating! And I suppose I’m just as much of a nerd for being so. You’ve also got my attention with TV license? At first I assumed it was something that had to do with running a station, but it sounds like it was something everyone needed in their home? A license to own a tv, or is a term for the cable bill? I have no clue.
SensibleChapess@reddit
Yep!
The BBC has no advertisments. Indeed, in things like children's TV shows, when the presenters are making things out of old rubbish, such as washing uop liquid bottles, the items would have to have all the brand names painted out. If ever a TV show happens to have a can of Coca Cola in a scene it would have to be held, or placed on a table, with the brand not showing.
The licence originated with a Radio Licence. Again, it was a State, (State...as in UK National/Government!), thing that it was funded centrally and not by advertising.
There's a constant outcry from people, invariably stirred up by those that will benefit from advertising on the BBC channels, to 'scrap the licence'. This resonates with many people because the annual, or monthly, cost is of course very obvious when you pay it. What people don't see is the hidden cost of having to pay for the advertising when buying things every day of the week. Analysis shows that the TV licence, for an average family, works out cheaper than adding together all the pennies on every packet of cereal, and every chocolate bar, and every bottle of cleaning product that households buy throughout the year and can be apportioned to the costs of running TV campaigns.
Personally I don't watch much TV, but when I do it's bloody annoying to watch the non-BBC channels, that are commercial stations, and having 2 or 3 minutes of adverts every 20minutes or so.
Some fun things:
- The Post Office use to have 'TV Detector Vans' that used to claim to have the technology in them to triangulate who was watching TV without a license! I used to know one of the staff who did this when I first worked in the Post Office. Inside the vans, that were all painted up as 'TV Licence Detector Vans' there was nothing but an aerial on the roof that was hand cranked from inside. They used to park outside schools and twirl the aerial so as the kids would run home and say "Mum, mum... Have we got a licence? The van is in the area".
- Of course, once you buy your first licence they had your details, so if you didn't renew it you'd get a string of increasingly aggressive letters and, eventually, snotty 'Investigators' knocking on your door threatening you with police action.
- People without a license genuinely used to cover their TVs in tin foil because rumour had it that would stop the (fake!) vans from finding you!
- Each licence covered the address it was purchased for, but also allowed you to use a battery operated TV if you were using a carvan on holiday, (caravan = one of those campers towed behind your car, just in case you call it something different. In the UK we idolised Airstreams, ours were plastic or wood and were crap!).
- There was a cheaper licence for having a Black and White TV. The investigators also used to knock on doors to see what TV you had if you only had a Black and White licence because, by the 1980s, most homes had moved to colour telly.
- A TV licence now costs £169.50 a year, (220 USD).
- The penalty used to be £1000 for not having a licence. They now don't jail you for not having a license if they catch you watching TV, but of course, if you don;t pay the fine then that's a (potentially) imprisonable offence. Tens of thousands of people a year are prosecuted for not having a TV licence.
- Blind people can claim a discount on their TV licence, it's now 'half price', but used to be something like .
- It used to be simple to get your head around that having a TV meant you needed a TV Licencse and because the licence was clearly 'For watching TV, because the BBC didn't have advertising", the majority of people paid. That all changed when PCs and Satellite TV came along! It caused a bit of chaos legally speaking! The inspectors would see a TV screen on througha window, but the householder would say it was a PC monitor. We'd have workers from European countries watching TV and pointing at their satellite dish watching non-UK channels. Then you had 'catch up' TV. I legitimately didn;t have a TV licence for years because I only watched things on 'iPlayer'. Yes they were the same shows, but they weren't broadcast live. I used to get hassle from the TV Licencing people writing me letters until I said I'd sue them if they wrote to me again and I'd also charge them £500 a letter every time I had to write back! So the law now says something like "Any live broadcast, watched on any device, requires a TV Licence". So that means any YouTube live broadcast, watched in the UK, means you need a TV licence the money of which funds the BBC. I suspect that's why tens of thousands of people are now caught out, (that and years of Tory 'austerity', plus Brexit, means lots of us are harder up financially than ever!).
Hope that was useful! :D
basil_witch87@reddit (OP)
Very interesting and so different than over here, thank you!
Comfortable-Bug1737@reddit
Where I live, there is a stand-alone post office, but there is also one in a Spar garage and another garage.
Gnarly_314@reddit
In rural areas, there may not even be a village shop to contain the post office. Once, I had to collect my aunt's pension from a post office open three half days a week in someone's home. The counter was a serving hatch between the hall and the front room. I had to have a long chat with the post mistress before I could ask for my aunt's pension. Afterwards, there were several bits of news to take back to my aunt.
Gnarly_314@reddit
It was only the cash for the state pension I collected. You could buy stamps and post letters and parcels, but it was not a full service post office.
There was a postie who would deliver letters and bring a newspaper from the nearest little town even though that wasn't allowed. If he had time, he would come the full length of the farm track and have tea and cake before continuing his round. If he had a busy day, the letters and newspaper would be put in a milk churn left near the road for this purpose.
Things work differently in the country when everyone knows each other.
basil_witch87@reddit (OP)
Is it always the person (or in your case it was on behalf of your aunt) receiving the mail that’s responsible for obtaining it? There’s no letter carriers or mailbox delivery?
crucible@reddit
Oh, the regular mail is delivered.
State pensions used to be administered by a passbook system, so you’d take your pension book to the post office, say you wanted to collect your pension, they’d stamp the book and hand you the cash.
…and this is why people alluded to the Horizon computer system scandal elsewhere in this thread - at a basic level that was an attempt to computerise these sort of payments and do away with books that could - in theory - be forged.
Nowadays most people just have their pensions paid into a savings account automatically.
RRC_driver@reddit
A lot of sub-post offices are village shops, / convenience stores which have a counter for post office stuff
Post office stuff, is not just mail. They also used to be mini banks, where you could save money,draw your pension / family allowance in cash ( before electronic banking) pay your car tax, get a passport application, get a dog license etc. an interface between the government and the people.
There's also dedicated post offices normally in town centres
EVRider81@reddit
Post offices here (N.Ireland) used to be standalone business premises. The premises were sold off in various cost cutting initatives, and post office franchise counters started to appear in other business premises. 2 local post offices I used are now part of a grocery shop,I haven't been in a standalone post office in 10 years..
Violet351@reddit
When I was a kid our local post office sold everything except food. It had clothes, shoes, material and wool and gifts. I had no idea until I went to the big post office in the next town that some post offices were just post offices. The local ones here all seem to be in other shops now eg newsagents or mini Tescos
Yokabei@reddit
Most post offices I have ever used are at the back of a store.
fattoad349@reddit
There more like a shop with a post office counter. Only post offices are at actual sorting offices
cdca@reddit
It used to be very common for Post Offices in small villages to double as grocery / general stores due to the low demand. This trend has actually come back again in recent years even in larger towns as Post Offices merge with convenience stores to save costs. Plenty of single-purpose Post Offices still exist though.
G30fff@reddit
Succinct and correct
Illustrious-Fox-1@reddit
There are two types of Post Offices:
Crown Post Offices owned by Royal Mail. These used to be found everywhere, even in small villages, and are the British equivalent of a local government office. There are still a few left.
Post Offices inside another business, usually a convenience or stationery store. They may not offer quite as many services as the biggest ones.
The Post Office offers banking and administrative services- you can deposit savings into government bonds or apply for a passport there. It’s not just for mail.
As government services and banking have been very successfully digitised in the UK, the demand for Post Offices has declined so now most are found in local convenience stores.
Dramatic-Energy-4411@reddit
In my hometown the huge (about 12 cashiers) post office branch closed down a few years ago. It's now got 2 or 3 staff and is inside WH Smith.
At one point, I had three post office branches within a 10 minute walk from home. All of them doubled up as either a newsagent or small general store. All long since gone and turned in to houses. Once the Post Office pulled their service in favour of one (insufficiently sized) branch in town, the shops lost the add on custom and couldn't carry on.
Interceptor@reddit
Historically at least, you could pretty much organize your entire life at the post office. Obviously they take mail, sell stamps and postage, but also we're the place to go for new passport applications, all sorts of government forms and filings, and many (possibly a majority) have a bureau de change for exchanging currencies. A lot offer banking services (I used to have to pay cheques in there occasionally,many years ago), and will make out international money orders or offer travellers cheques when they were a thing. A lot of post offices in rural locations would also be located inside a village convenience/general store as well.
Original-Classic7026@reddit
Yep lots of post offices were part of a general store
cavergirl@reddit
Our small village used to have a standalone post office, but when it closed the greengrocer/florist installed a post office counter. It's fairly common in rural areas for random shops to add a post office counter as a service to the community.
panguy87@reddit
Sometimes post offices were general stores first and then got a post office contract, other times they branched out into general goods supply because there was a need in the community and if people needed something whilst they were waiting to post something they save a trip to the corner shop.
EconomicsPotential84@reddit
The vast majority of post offices are franchises and are often combined with a corner shop style set up (convince store). In some smaller villages, they're often even more broad in what they sell.
A medium size village near where I grew up also had a cafe/bakery as well as a reasonably well stocked general shop attached to the post office and all ran by the same person.
Conversely, in the large city I now live the central post office is just post office services, but the full spectrum, e.g. currency exchange, all size of parcel, money orders etc.
Magical_Harold@reddit
In days gone by there was a mix of stand alone post offices (usually in bigger towns) and sub post offices (these were set up in a section of an existing business, convenience store).
The model seems to have shifted to fully sub post office where it sits in a shop, supermarket, or almost any other type of business.
Shannoonuns@reddit
Most post offices are inside other business. Standalone post offices are quite rare.
Like in my town our we have a big post office in a whsmiths, its mostly a book and stationary shop. Some whsmiths do sell meal deals but this one doesn't sell chilled food so its just some snacks.
We used to have a big standalone post office but they shut and moved into our whsmiths, I guess they couldn't justify the rent on their own.
I think in the past most villages had a post office counter in thier local shop. It was probably only bigger towns that had ever had standalone post offices.
crucible@reddit
Or the SPM was jailed. Hard to tell, really…
Shannoonuns@reddit
I mean it was a massive post office, it probably only closed 10-ish years ago and the post office now takes up a third of a massive whsmith so I doubt that was the reason.
I'm sure they would've wrongly jailed the post master when the post office was at its wealthiest because of all the post masters that were paying back thousands of pounds that didn't actually go missing.
crucible@reddit
Oh, indeed. I’m just very cynical about the organisation now… as my choice of examples elsewhere in the thread will show
twentiethcenturyduck@reddit
There used to be two types of Post Office.
The main post office offered a range of both postal and government services, selling stamps, sending parcels, TV licenses, car tax, postal orders, premium bonds and so on.
Looked like a traditional bank with a long row of counters behind glass (and even longer queues) - didn’t sell anything else.
Village Post Offices (sub-post offices) used to be part of village shops with a much more limited range of services (oh, we don’t do that here dear, you’ll have to go in to Borchester).
Yeoman1877@reddit
Your first paragraph is significant. The main, or crown, post offices effectively used to act as gateways to government services generally in addition to providing postal services. Nowadays this is mostly done over the internet.
oldsailor21@reddit
50 years ago the main post office was frequently stand alone with the sub post offices having a shop as well, now it's rare to see a stand alone post office
SingerFirm1090@reddit
There is (or was) a distinction between 'main' post offices and 'sub' post offices, the latter were often in other shops selling food, basically the village shop'
mellonians@reddit
Larger towns used to have a dedicated post office but most post offices are more like this https://images.app.goo.gl/11Qj4bqvMWX4mJtY7 A post office counter in a convenience store. Sometimes it's staffed by dedicated staff in a bank-counter type glassed corner and sometimes it's just an extension of the normal counter staffed by the shop staff. The town I grew up (pop70k) in had a dedicated post office in the town centre and about a dozen counter type operations in the suburbs.
Flapparachi@reddit
We still have a ‘main’ post office in the nearest town (I live rurally) that is dedicated to postal and related services only. Big, old-fashioned traditional building that’s echo-ey inside.
Our sub-post offices in the villages and smaller towns are all part of a shop, whether is a convenience chain or independent, as this is what makes them profitable.
My local post office is adorable. It’s a place where you can get sweets, newspapers, milk and fresh rolls but is more like a gift shop, very Aladdins cave. The lady who runs it older, and a total delight - she’s saved my skin a few times by having random things (an umbrella was one of them) and she’s definitely a cornerstone of the village community.
FidelityBob@reddit
Until the late 20th century most large and many smaller towns had a large post office that was just that. The Post Office phased these out to reduce costs and put the post office inside a local shop. There were always post offices in shops as well but they offered fewer services.
Eastern-Move549@reddit
I'm not sure that standalone post offices even exist anymore tbh.
Generally speaking calling a shop by the fact that it has a post office if just an easy way to identify which shop your going to. There are all sorts of random name convenience stores but the big red post office sign stands out.
SorryContribution681@reddit
It's been a long time since I've seen a post office that is only a post office. They're usually just a counter in another shop nowadays.
JanisIansChestHair@reddit
The post office we used to go to when I was a kid, had a shelf with bric a brac items, and another with sweets and chocolate, it was very small. The one I go to now has two aisles of food and stuff, magazines etc.
Princes_Slayer@reddit
Over the years, post offices near where I live have been part of the following types of shop; Thornton’s Chocolates and P.O. / Newsagent and P.O. / Local family owned general store and P.O / Tesco Metro and P.O / Large Asda and P.O
The only P.O I’ve been to which was solely one used to be in Liverpool and was very well used during the week as it was near businesses rather than the heart of the shops. I think it was probably Covid that did away with it and it’s now upstairs in a WH Smith’s in the shopping precinct part
NortonBurns@reddit
These smaller village shops are [or were] known as sub-post offices. They need to do both to survive. The post office business alone wouldn't keep them afloat.
A larger town or city will also have dedicated post offices.
AzzTheMan@reddit
I haven't seen a stand alone post office in years. Round by me they all closed and moved into other shops. Corner shops, news agents, super markets all have post office counters inside them now
crucible@reddit
Yes, in smaller villages the post office will be a separate counter in a sort of general store.
Agathabites@reddit
Most of my local post offices are inside supermarkets.
pm_me_your_amphibian@reddit
Post only ones do exist, usually the ones in bigger cities (in the town next to mine there’s a big one that only does post and a tiny bit of related stationary) but mostly they have some kind of shop attached. I have 3 local to me, one sells cards and stationary as well as plants for some reason. The other is at the back of a small convenience store. The last one is a little village shop with a mini farm shop and sells locally made baked goods etc.