The letter from Noel Fay, postman and former branch secretary of the Communication Workers' Union (Oxford Mail, June 6), must have been lost in the post' somewhere, as it seems that it was penned some time in the seventies.

His demands for "a decent rise in basic pay", "jobs secured" and "pensions protected" stem from the heady days when General Post Office workers openly called themselves God's Protected Ones'.

In the private sector, none of these things has existed for years, and many workers in that sector, myself included, have suffered pay cut after pay cut as turnover and profits levels drop each year, totally out of control of the people at the sharp end', or on the shop floor.

Welcome to the real world Mr Fay, I'm afraid absolutely nothing is guaranteed any more, not even for postmen.

Clive Harrison Quarhill Close Over Norton


THE concerns of businesses over the impact of a postal strike (Oxford Mail, June 8) highlight the vital role postal workers have in our economy.

Your readers will have noticed that even postal items with non-Royal Mail postage are delivered to them by their Royal Mail postie. This is because all private postal companies do is collect letters from their customers and bring them to a Royal Mail centre, where they are processed and sent to a Royal Mail delivery office.

From there, a Royal Mail postie delivers them to us.

Is this parasitic or what?

So while Royal Mail must rightly ensure a universal service, it is also forced to compete with private companies that use Royal Mail to save costs, cherry-pick their customers, and are only interested in the big, profitable contracts such as the ones they have with banks (certainly not small businesses).

Competition is destroying Royal Mail. Collections from most post boxes are down to one a day, and the second delivery has disappeared.

If the proposed huge job cuts were allowed to happen, deliveries in rural areas would be cut down to perhaps three a week.

We are all at a crossroads, and our last hope is the union.

By sacrificing their pay to oppose pay and job cuts, our posties are saving the service for us all.

Please write to Royal Mail demanding it negotiates with the union and so prevents the strike, or we may soon find we have no Royal Mail.

Dona Velluti President Oxford & District Trades Union Council


So the Labour Government suggests that we have a "British Day" to celebrate our British identity.

Such an idea would sound acceptable if it came from anyone else but this Government, which has done more than any other in living memory to undermine what it means to be British.

Other people have highlighted how this Government's policies on ID Cards, detention without trial, uncontrolled immigration, political correctness, limits on free speech and banning protest outside Parliament are examples of their attacks on British culture, values and way of life.

To this, I would add the growing resentment among English people about the way they are being treated compared with their British countrymen in Scotland and Wales. More and more people deliberately choose to identify themselves as English, not British - a direct result of having Britishness rammed down our throats while being starved of our equally important English identity.

So to the idea of a British Day - which Gordon Brown says must not be a Bank Holiday but just a celebration - I say let's have a national Bank Holiday for St George's Day in England, and one in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland for St Andrew, St David and St Patrick.

Better that than some contrived day of Britishness cooked up by the people that have done so much to destroy our culture, values and way of life.

Tom Waterhouse Campaign for an English Parliament Oxfordshire branch