The Lost Post Chapter 4 The Station

Ah remember those old red trains; sprinting through the night as in the famous poem? They’re gone now and a whole history has faded with them. These days huge juggernauts bellowing CO2, plough their way toward artless, faceless constructs that contain only a listless deck from which mails from one wagon are taken across to another. Then they are as quickly gone, back onto the mind-numbing motorways, lost and insignificant among the thousands of characterless hauliers wandering these three-laned facilitators in search of the next set of road works.
I was there when the last TPO (Travelling Post Office) pulled into the station. It perhaps wasn’t as nostalgic for me as others. I’d had some experience of station work but, unless you lived and worked at the beginning of a line, say Manchester or the end of one such as Penzance, you rarely worked on the trains. However, even though I never actually set foot on one, I could sense another world inside the ‘other’ world of Royal Mail as I stood handing mail in and out of the carriage doorways.
I still recall the smell the first time I peered inside. The usual waft of stifled sweat associated with a predominantly male staff working in a confined and communal space slipped up one’s nostrils, but it was combined with the bouquet of something quite indefinable. My best guess combined a fusion of certain particular ingredients: years of indeterminate wax polishes on the ribbed wood frames, the necessary profusion of air- freshner and smells captured by the closing doors at each stop; and yet it must have been a different fragrance for those nearer and further down the line as with each successive stop unique urban scents were dispersed and entrapped simultaneously. And so every week night these trains would chunter on like mobile perfumeries, manufacturing the sorts of cologne only found for sale these days in a pound shop.
When that last train pulled away nostalgia was the last thing on my mind, especially as the bastard was always late. Roy, too, confessed to me, as we watched the train’s lights disappear into the darkness for the last time, he was glad to see the back of it. It was like a divorce he claimed. The signs had always been there - the tardiness of schedules, the rabbit-like populace of rail-works and the fatigue of over-burdened and antique rolling stock. Logistics demanded greater reliability as competition, like a new lover stood waiting in the wings. Royal Mail could not afford a manage a trios, and moved out of the house.
Roy had also moved out of the house. I was shocked of course. I knew that Sandra and he were not entwined in connubial cordiality, but I gathered that there was a compromise that seemed to befit both of them. He liked to go out, she had her TV and as far as I knew it was a contented arrangement. He always talked about her affectionately, they enjoyed two holidays a year and were loving parents, but it seemed that Roy’s penchant for flirting had actually and unexpectedly bore some fruit one night.
An extra-marital relationship originating from a works ‘do’ was unsurprising enough; that Roy was one half of it, was. He had resigned himself to his role as party entertainer and within minutes of his arrival and first visit to the bar he would be something akin to a human sun, surrounded by a gaggle of satellites all eager to bathe in his solar wit.
Into this Orrery flew a comet called Angela. Angela was described, in Post Office speak, as a ‘tidy’ girl, meaning she had a nice little body, a shapely pair of pegs, breasts that rose naturally and anatomically correct from the space between a flat tanned tummy and sleek tanned shoulders, a shock of attractive curly blonde hair straightened and streaked with red and a face that looked as if it was running for a bus and hit a lamppost.
At first, she later admitted to me, she was curious about the legend. Was he really as funny as everybody claimed? “Comedy in a man is far more important than looks you know”, she declaimed in the canteen one lunch-time. Unfortunately she was overheard by those occupants of the driver’s table, a source of constant mirth and vehemence in equal doses.
“Just as well love, he’d need a sense of humour to put up with that mug” – this less than original insult emanating from an anonymous source within the association gathered around their precious and zealously guarded piece of refectory wood.
This gathering of highly developed IQ’s adopted Angela as their office bike. In truth she was very particular about her relationships and subsequently was becoming increasingly desperate. “Men are essentially shallow” she purported and Angela was the perfect practical experiment in which to prove her theory. She had lost count of the number of amorous and, in some instances, filthy advances she’d earned with her very attractive back pointed toward the budding Romeo, only to disappoint when she turned her less than Juliet visage around to face him. Thus she learned the value of friendship and perceived that this was the only true germ from which a lasting love could flourish. And unlike her tormentors Angela was blessed with the loyalty of two or three companions and not dozens of fair-weather acquaintances, which was the Post Office norm.
However Angela was human and therefore possessed certain frailties as we all must; and hers was drink. As she drifted into the cosmos surrounding Roy she was content and, considering the disparaging and undeserving looks of some of the males, more comfortable simply eavesdropping. To his credit Roy was not a prejudicial sort and wouldn’t have considered Angela, of whom he’d heard of but not seen, any less worthy in his universe than some of those who quite clearly belonged in glass houses. As Roy began to get drunker and drunker and his stories began to lose some of their lucidity he noticed the girl on the periphery of the gang was transforming into a not unhandsome woman. For her part, after several assorted flavoured Bicardi Breezers, it appeared to Angela that Roy was getting thinner.
Inevitably, as with all the other office parties, the stratosphere around Roy began to clear. To his surprise, though, there was one little moon that was continuing to wax and wane in front of him. By this time he had been fully informed of who she was.
“It’s Annjellla, isn’t it?” he slurred.
“I could lizen…to your storiz…and jokes all…night”, she replied in a staccato stupor.
“You’d have to…you’d have to…zleep with me then” he joked
“Itzza deal” she said binding the contract in both their alcohol-frazzled brains.
For a millisecond Roy a shot of astonished sobriety flushed upward from his toes to the top of his head.
“You’re ab...so…lootly zerious? You’re not…taking the pisch?” he gurgled guardedly.
“Lez discuzat in the taxzee” she burped into his left lobe and immediately the promise of her warm breath whistling in that tender spot began cranking up a certain lower body organ usually employed at this time of night in secreting excess bladder fluids.
“Why the fuck didn’t she approach me earlier”, he cried to himself, “I bet I’ll either go limp or blow my balls inside two seconds. Half-cut and I’d have stood a chance but Jeez the inside of my head’s rattling like bag of bolts”
As they climbed into the taxi Angela informed Roy immediately of her good intentions. Satisfied that her avid attentions had established a mental connection between them both, which therefore, in her terms, permitted the momentum to advance into physicality, she nestled her wiry and sensual little torso into his massive embrace, slipped her right hand between his legs and began to massage his penis, whilst her tongue tickled and teased the inside of his ear. The culpability for what was about to occur next, lay on the mishmash of a man lacking a decent orgasm for some weeks, a woman, enthralled in the act of penile stimulation and a taxi driver unable to refrain from surveillance in his rear-view mirror (adjusted accordingly)
Angela, in her eagerness, was not so much massaging Roy’s member than kneading it as if it were a lump of dough and she certainly got it to rise. Poor Roy, in a valiant effort to stem the sap bubbling in his balls, had begun reciting the 1966 England World Cup winning team but had barely got to full-back Ray Wilson before his eyes seemed to lose all sense of co-ordination and began to spin independently within his quivering eye-lids and then the top of his dick erupted.
Unperturbed Angela patted his soggy patch and leant backwards so that her head was cradled in his tremulous stomach. She hitched up her skirt slightly and awaited the invasion of her nether regions with Roy’s substantial fingers. Unfortunately Angela had forgotten the first rule of unabated lust. Never let the man come first. And as Roy sat there with the last echoes of fulfilment dissipating, the nausea of intoxication came flooding back and with it a complete inability to satisfy Angela, even though he felt, quite rightly, that she deserved it. In a last ditch attempt at gratitude he moved his right hand tentatively toward her open thighs, knowing full well that at this precise moment he’d have trouble manipulating a bag of chips.
Deliverance was at hand though, even if it meant deliverance of another sort as a consequence. As Roy’s fingers eventually traversed the short distance across Angela’s skirt and into the shadows between her knees, the taxi driver, who had been observing the action in a succession of rapid glances, was unable to concentrate on anything other than the promise of a nubile female writhing in orgasmic delight on his back seat and forgot about the road ahead. As Roy reached inside her skirt, Angela gasped in anticipation, and if the archaic adage has any substance the earth certainly felt as if it had moved for her as the Taxi jumped the kerb and ploughed into a lamppost.
When the debris was cleared away and the occupants of the cab were being extracted from the stricken vessel with cutting equipment courtesy of the local fire brigade, whilst the paramedics prepared to go to work. The driver had quite a severe head wound but was treated on the spot and sent to hospital for minor surgery. On impact Angela had been thrown forward away from Roy and then backward toward him again only to bounce off his body once more knocking her out. She recounted to a friend later that it was the only jump she got that night. When the full story came out Angela’s time at the Post Office was over. But it was never going to be a management decision, after all many owed their lofty positions to a series of similar trysts; no it was the drivers, her mortal enemies that saw her off. The final straw being the acerbic comment that: “She’d gone back to that lamppost to see if she could finish the job off”
Roy was not so lucky. Both his knees had banged into the back of the drivers seat and felt like they had cracked open. When the first paramedic stuck his head into the cab Roy was doubled up in agony. He quickly ran his hands over Roy searching for broken bones or wounds. At this precise moment the mixture of pain, ecstasy and alcohol finally took its toll Roy passed out. Fearing that Roy’s lapse of consciousness was attributable to serious injury, the beleaguered medic felt below Roy’s waist and noticed a large damp patch at the front of his trousers.
“We need to get this man out now!” he screamed to his colleagues, who rallied round to assist. Their enthusiasm wilted as they espied Roy’s considerable girth but as dedicated professionals they hauled him out as gently as possible and laid him out on the street in order to investigate Roy’s trousers.
By this time a crowd had gathered consisting of the usual characters affiliated by the urgings of a Friday night out. There was the crack-head who kept jumping up and down on the spot looking for the aliens who had brought Roy back from their home planet Zork; the middle-aged pair of married dipsos, a loud-mouthed husband and his silent dishevelled wife; the curious adolescent who salivates over the possibility of witnessing real-time mortality and the pensioner who should know better and always acts as if he does.
As they cut into the cloth the paramedic began to suspect that the fluid was a little stickier than expected and to be honest had surmised the likely outcome some moments before the evidence became irrefutable. But even the best of men require some devilment in their lives to counter the ennui of decency and so he continued cutting until Roy’s limp tool was displayed for the motley crew of onlookers.
The crack-head thought the aliens had performed a sex change on Roy because the penis didn’t look real, but, I guess, not much did to someone in his state. The silent wife tittered as her vociferous husband bellowed, “He’s just had a blow job!” his subtlety wasted in these circles; whilst the pensioner tut-tutted as if fellatio were a modern aberration. Slowly Roy began to stir and as he did so the youth sighed disappointedly and sauntered away searching the night for carnage and mortality.
Even amidst a daze of distress and debauchery Roy could feel the cool night air permeating a place where it shouldn’t and began gradually to piecemeal the situation notwithstanding the off-putting leer from the strident husband and the prodding of the pensioner’s walking stick.
He was saved further embarrassment when they finally took him into the ambulance and, after they knocked him out with a strong pain killer, relieved from the pain in his knees, which were eventually discovered not to be broken. That might have been the end of it if the local press had not been informed (The cab driver’s wife being the chief suspect as her husband was off work for weeks and she had been highly critical of the sorts of depravity the latter had to put up with to put bread into his babies’ mouths)
The banner headline in the local paper ran thus:

BACK SEAT BONKING BASH

Rumour has it that it took twelve writers (employed by or freelanced to the paper) to conceive this legend after an all night think tank. Copies were freely available at the office for weeks afterwards (there was even a yellowing copy found in an unused office as the wreckers moved in to demolish the old building) and one laid out for Roy on his return to work. He didn’t really need one - it was delivered to his house daily by the local newsagents. He had wiped his feet on it as it lay in the hallway the first time he left Sandra and Bobby. That was hard but at least his return to work was easier for him than it was for Angela. He amused people, he had garnered some sympathy due to his separation from Sandra, and due to her undeserving reputation as the office slag she was always going to be attributable for leading Roy astray. So he rode the jibes and found within days that in doing so he was becoming more admired within female circles and less trusted among the males. In future any wives who strayed into Roy’s company at a party had their husbands in tow.
During that first separation from Sandra Roy picked up a night duty at the station and it was there that Roy first met Val, the supervisor for the station operation. There was nothing wrong with Val as gaffers go, she was old school and easy come easy go; but unfortunately she also looked easy.
She was pushing sixty, looked a lot older and dressed like a twenty-nine year old divorcee on her way toward the British equivalent of a Roman toga party. It’s not as if Roy had any qualms about her demeanour, she was quite a trim lady, but he felt that, unlike the Mary Rose, some things really aren’t worth preserving. She would wear high heels, short skirts and, in winter, a fur coat. Her make-up was trowelled on like un-skimmed plaster on a wall. She wore bright red lipstick and heavy dark eye-shadow and mascara. Stood still she gave the impression of a marionette that had had a hard life.
One night, unknown to Val, the police had employed an undercover operation designed to deter prostitutes from using the toilets as an office. The purpose was, as with many of their operations, a publicity exercise to deflect attention from their own recent failures against the sort of crimes people really wanted them to beat, in the light of a guaranteed success against one that most of society cares very little about. Many of the station veterans could spot the undercover police a mile away. They looked far too normal to be anywhere near to the station at night. Later, after the incident with Val, one of the old boys claimed credit for setting his manager up, by sending her down toward the gent’s toilet in search of a stolen mail bag. If this was true his timing was impeccable as Val strolled down toward the lavatory unaware that a few seconds previously one of the undercover policemen, unable to restrain his bloated bladder after two flasks of coffee, had repaired to the toilet in rapid fashion.
At eleven o’clock at night very few people have the nerve to venture into the toilets, even the postal workers went in a group, so Val thought nothing of pushing open the outside door and listening in. The desperate policeman had inadvertently caught his zipper and was having to work himself out of his pants. Already suspicious, Val interpreted the rustling sound to someone digging into a bag of mail searching for items of value. However, she was loathe to proceed any further lest she isolate herself with a villain whom may have been armed, so instead, she called into him.
“Have you got anything in there that I’m after?” she enquired
The policeman, hearing the offer, naturally assumed that Val was on the game, saw him entering the toilet and was in the process of propositioning him. Unfortunately for him he was in no position to carry out his duty as in an effort to release the offending zip he had thrust his right hand inside his trousers to manipulate the metal strip away from the snared piece of cloth only for his hand to become stuck as well. He was further hampered in his duty to uphold the law by an inability to unbuckle his radio which was attached to the right rear of his trouser belt. He could touch it with his free hand but not grip it. In doing so he fell over and was now lying on his back with one hand behind him and the other in a position that an observer, ignorant of the circumstances, could only construe as an act of self-abuse.
Val, hearing the thump, was now convinced she had a perpetrator in the toilet and shouted to Roy and the others for help. Assuming they would charge to her support she marched into the lavatory to confront the robber. When she saw the man wriggling on the floor in desperation, she assumed the extravagant jerking of his body to be the last stages of self-induced orgasm and stood speechless for some moments.
At this stage the policeman, now understanding how this must look and not caring from which direction and from whom assistance came pleaded fro Val to help him.
“Can you help me get it out?” he cried gesturing toward his hand with a nod of his head.
Val, in a state of abhorrence and unable to formulate what many would consider a measured reply, could only muster, “But won’t it be all sticky”
“No”, the prostrate lawman remonstrated, “You don’t understand. I’m not the sort of guy who pays for it, I’m a police officer”
“Policeman or not”, snorted Val, “I’m expecting some real men in here any minute so clean yourself up”
Whilst this marriage of embarrassment and shock was heading for the divorce court another interested party happened to be listening in. As the policemen lay on the toilet floor the pressure between his back and the tiles had resulted in the opening of his radio channel. His partner, ensconced in the station atrium, had been chewing on a mars bar when the airwaves erupted with what, he would recall later to his colleagues, could only be the overture to an illegal act. He rushed toward the toilet and burst in handcuffs in hand with every intention of arresting both the prostitute and his immoral comrade.
In the intervening minute or so during his partner’s dash to the lavatory, the encumbered policeman had managed to convince Val of the real nature of the situation and to her credit, and being a trusting soul, she had knelt down beside him in an effort to extract the rabid teeth of the trouser zip. But Val’s eyesight was poor and vanity ensured that her reading glasses were tucked safely in her bag inside the little office the managers used, and therefore as manual focus was required she had to get as close as possible toward the obstinate metallic strip.
And that’s how they found them. When I say they, I do of course mean that after witnessing the second policeman racing toward the Gents with his handcuffs, Roy and the rest of the boys flew up the platform pronto and were only a couple of seconds later in arriving than the arresting officer. From behind one could not help but to ascertain that what was passing was indeed the act of felatio.
If, perhaps, Val had dressed in a manner more apposite for her age, and allowed her skin to develop its own reaction to the inevitability of time rather than imprison it in paste for the last twenty years, she might have been believed. Roy and the boys might also have helped but denied, much to her bewilderment, all knowledge of the woman; one even suggesting that it was about time her sort had been moved on. Given the weight of all the circumstantial evidence, she was taken from the scene and held overnight, only being released the following morning when a senior management official was roused from his bed and sent to the local constabulary to vouch for her.
On her return to work she was given a soft job inside pushing paper and retired shortly after. She never saw nor spoke to any of the station staff and remained bitter with them to her death five years later. She reportedly left a substantial sum, being the widow of a wealthy man, to a charity founded to offer prostitutes an established house in which to conduct their business safely.
Roy missed Val but, back then, there were always other condolences: Don MacKenzie, for instance. Some legends are born and some are created; Douglas Bader and Achilles spring to mind as two fine examples of those noble attributes assigned to the best of us. Bader overcame physical disability and an arrogance nature to pursue both his own ambition and a succession of German aircraft. Achilles’ fury and fighting ability was so awesome that even nature itself was compelled to confront him. Don MacKenzie was neither physically impaired or a remarkable fighter but he became legend nevertheless and there was nothing he was able to do about it.
He had a pleasant face, smooth skin with little sign of wear considering he was in his forties. He was well built and strong and, despite his strength, never became belligerent or malicious. He aged well because he lived well, ate the right foods and kept himself in good physical shape. One look into his pale blue eyes, however, gave the game away. Although they were the colour of the sky on a clear fine day, unlike the sky, you could tell there was nothing beyond them.
He seemed to envisage the world in two dimensions. Whether he ignored or was simply oblivious to the nastier aspects of life, the agonies of certain sections of poorer society or even the plight of the sick I never knew. It was as if he’d been raised in a bunker by two sprightly and sanguine parents whose tutelage never extended itself beyond the great and the good.
Even during his stint at the station he seemed oblivious to the variety of decadent human behaviour one witnessed there. It was if everything he sensed had a movie quality about it; going home was like leaving the cinema. He wasn’t a loner at work and actively sought company but he lived alone and very little was known about his private life – if anybody had been remotely interested.
He first sprung to Roy’s attention one Friday night shortly after Roy picked his night job. The job began at the station before a brief spell back at the office, then home. Station jobs were good jobs. You weren’t stuck inside all night and although the work was hard, for those that did it (supervision was generally poor) and you got all the free entertainment that such a public place would afford you during the twilight hours. Football hooligans, good time girls, inebriates, junkies, and worst of all train spotters; yes all the nutters were there but none comparable to our Don
He was sitting on a bench with Roy when a tall gangly chap, early twenties, who appeared much the worse for a night’s drinking, lumbered across the platform. He was wearing a leather jacket and trousers and tight fitting leather boots. Someone asked him where the Red Indian and the construction worker were but you could tell that he wasn’t gay – he didn’t have the moustache. His gait was very awkward, something akin to an exaggerated pin toe, and he seemed very relieved when Don shuffled along the bench and motioned to him to sit down.
“You look like you had a good night mate”, chuckled Don
“I did actually”, said the surprisingly well-spoken young man
“Had a few drinks in town then?”
“Yeah, not too many though; waiting for the next train to Birmingham. Thanks for moving along there aren’t any more seats” he observed.
“Yeah, we’ve another train to do; them boots killing you then?”
“No”, he replied rather hurt, “I’m a cripple”
There had been nothing malicious in Don, he was genial and very rarely raised his voice, but there were times when his interpretation of this universe was sadly lacking. Anybody with a minimal amount of nous could see the man was physically challenged unlike Don whose own impairment was buried between his ears and ultimately this naïve idiocy put paid to his continued presence servicing the trains.
On the west coast line some trains ran from one terminus to another and vice-versa each night, for example one train would begin at Manchester and end at Dover and its doppelganger the opposite way. Occasionally if there was a delay the trains would stop at the station at the same time but, as they always arrived on different platforms, 2 and 3, it caused little confusion. Whether one believes in destiny or that some people seem to attract trouble for themselves or whether it was just bad luck, certain factors converged one night that would end Don’s spell at the station.
Having planned his first European vacation Don had arranged for a cheap way of getting to his ferry for France by hitching a surreptitious and free ride to the coast via the Manchester - Dover train. Arriving in uniform with his civvies in a large haversack he had arranged with the lads who worked on his door, to sneak him on board and hide him in the baggage car until the end of the line.
Even the night rail workers were part of the pact, keeping Don hidden in their little room between platforms 2 and 3 and away from his supervisor, who knew he was on holiday. Don arrived in a state of heightened anxiety. He had been unable to sleep, the corollary of a mind racked with the fear of the great continental unknown and of getting caught. He had only managed a couple of hours in the afternoon after a visit to his local.
Railway stations at night are always cool, even in summer, but this June evening there was an unusually bite in the twilight, perhaps, looking back, that first gnaw of global warming effects. The little room that was to be Don’s hidey-hole was always crammed with postmen and railwaymen in between trains in winter. It was small but snug and had been arranged, Linda Barker style, so that a kettle, a toaster, a mini-fridge, a little stove and a small electric fire could be incorporated along with sufficient storage space for tea, coffee, sugar and all the usual accoutrements, as well as cans of beans, spaghetti, soup and other various and convenient foods.
Because of the chill the station staff had turned on the fire. As Don sat down to wait the forty minutes or so before his train came in, the heat teased at his tiredness and, being slightly under the influence within a short time dropped off to sleep. As he dozed there was points failure down the line which effectively closed platform 3 meaning the staff would have to service (offload and load the mail) both trains on platform 2. During the melee of dragging one set of mail out of the way and another across one side of the platform to the other, the posties forgot about Don. And because of the necessity of having to re-order the trains by way of backing them in and out of the sidings, the railway boys also forget about Don.
The plan was simple enough but required a fair bit of logistical manoeuvring. Priority for platform 2 was given to the Manchester bound train, normally serviced on 3. It would be taken directly in whilst the other directed onto platform 1 for reversing into the sidings. It would then too be brought onto 3 once the Manchester – Dover left.
As Don snoozed the latter locomotive had pulled into the station with an unauthorised passenger who had beaten Don to the punch by jumping in front of the engine at the previous station. The squeamish amongst us would hardly relish the macabre crest that adorned the train as it made its slow approach on platform 1. Nevertheless once the doors opened on the Dover – Manchester train, now ensconced on platform 2, reports of the suicide hurtled along it like a bush-fire and the train was abandoned with all the alacrity of people caught within one
Moments before the grinding shriek of brakes on the Dover – Manchester eventually pulled Don from slumberland. As he fought to recover his wits (if that isn’t being ironic) he panicked assuming he had slept the night away, only to recover his composure by checking out the station clock above the door and realising that he had woken at the time his train was due to leave. One sneaky peek outside confirmed that his train was still there but, curiously, there were no TPO staff visible inside the carriage. Unaware of the points failure and the suicide Don assumed that the TPO on platform 3 was, as usual, Dover bound, so he slipped onto the carriage afraid that tarrying would cost him his free ride. However feeling overtly visible without the protection of the staff he decided not to wait for them and made his way to the empty and unmanned baggage car. Secreting himself behind an old trunk he put down his haversack and fell asleep again.
As Don’s intended train was taken into the sidings for cleaning and repositioning and the voyeurs had had their fill of the grisly sight of the human jigsaw (several parts missing) the staff returned to the train, it was serviced and left toward Manchester with a sleeping Don on board.
As the Dover train would be further delayed by the suicide it allowed all the station workers a little time for a quick cigarette or a coffee or both. As they chatted somebody recollected that Don was still in the room and suggested they told him to sit tight in the meantime. But of course he was gone and as no-one could trace him they assumed he had witnessed the scenes on platform 1 and decided to make his way to Dover in a more customary fashion.
When Don returned to work after his two week holiday he was informed brusquely that he was being relieved of his station duties and reassigned to indoor sorting. One suspects that this was because he had been discovered lurking in the recesses of the baggage car or pinched as he mingled in with the other workers vacating the train. This was not so and, as it was so often in his dear sweet existence, it was Don himself, who, after finding out he was another 100 miles further from France than when he started, complained bitterly to the onboard staff, who were looking at him incredulously wondering what the bloody hell he was doing on their train.
Overheard by a supervisor he was dragged along the platform and thrown onto the concourse at Piccadilly station. By the time he had paid for a train to London, a connection to Dover and, as he missed his ferry, replacement tickets for the voyage over the channel, his free ride had cost him £200 and severely dented the spending power of his bankroll for the following two weeks so much so that he spent the first his maison living on weetabix, spaghetti on toast and cheap lager.
But he was legend. It was people like Don who made Royal Mail a unique place to work and it was people like Don who would destroy it.