Iain Maciver writes …

I am seriously worried about our posties. And not just because all of them are weighed down this week with the latest electronic gadgets from iwantoneofthose.com or wheredothebatteriesgo.co.uk. Just what is all this nonsense about making them walk faster? That will never work.

When I was doing RAF training we had to go on a route-march through Sherwood Forest at what the military calls a mean velocity of 3.5mph. Now they want Ronnie Jappy and the other Stornoway posties to go faster than that? I don’t think so, not even downhill.

Ronnie himself was a Brylcreem Boy so he is actually governed to prevent him going faster than that. What Eddie Mackenzie and the other top brass don’t understand is that there are all kinds of things that could hold up a postie. Like when they come to my house.

Basically, the Royal Mail is just too efficient. The posties now come round far too early. In my own case, I don’t really make much sense before lunchtime these days. Yet it is sometimes before noon when I hear the familiar knocking that heralds the delivery of the latest item of lingerie that my anxious-to-please wife has ordered from eBay or Marks or, her latest one, thiswillgethimgoing.com.

I am not allowed to know what size it is nor am I allowed to know how much it cost but if I don’t loudly exclaim how absolutely gorgeous she is in it the very instant she puts it on then I am in the doghouse for at least a week.

The point is that I am so dozy if I have to get up that early and put on my dressing gown to answer the door that I sometimes forget to draw tight the cord.

More than once have I opened the front door in my gown to find premier postie Derick Chico there open-mouthed and looking not a little disturbed. Being the perfect gentleman that he is, Derick is always determined not to draw attention to my unintended exhibitionism so he always looks up at the sky while thrusting a wee card at me and asking me to make a mark on it.

It is when I fumble for a pen in my loosely-swinging dressing gown pockets that it dawns on me how draughty it is and that I’m giving a display of manliness that is causing Derick to examine our water rones and making the traffic in New Street grind to a halt. By the time I have apologised to Derick for the 10th time for putting him through that, again, the poor man is desperate to escape down to Kiwi’s Garage where at least David and the other mechanics may be a bit oily but are usually very decently attired.

Weighed-down, bunion-encrusted and hobbling from Jack Russell bites, these posties have a lot to put up with.

The other day I went to see what it was like in the other islands. I popped down to Lochmaddy to see if there is a Christmas rush there.

On the way across on the Loch Portain, ferryman Domhnall Beag told me he can order a part from England for his boat at lunchtime and Effie, the blonde bombshell Berneray postie, will be skipping up his path with it the next afternoon.

A note from Boris Johnson to Gordon Brown, just across the River Thames, can take three days to reach him. Yet a parcel coming by trains, planes and automobiles gets to a Hebridean island in a day. Fanflippingtastic.

Lachie Macleod, the Lochmaddy delivery manager, was hard at it sorting the parcels from whateveryuibhisteachwants.com when I ran in and demanded that cup of tea I am still waiting for. Lachie is a mine of information on the postal system.

He and his 90 colleagues in the islands will deliver 1.2million items this festivetide, he assured me.

I tried to catch him out by asking how many vans and minibuses are on the road in the islands but he quickly said 66, with seven extra at this time of year, without even looking it up.

Off the top of Lachie’s head, if you still haven’t posted your cards yet, you have a choice of 277 postboxes between the Butt and the south of Vatersay. Wow.

So, at this hectic time, let us remember our hard-working posties. Apart from getting flashes of inspiration from the likes of me, they do a fantastic job and will soon have a 4mph target dreamt up by someone who has never tried stuffing a J D Williams catalogue into a typical letterbox. Ferocious dogs, punctures, leaking parcels and, I hear, amorous housewives are just some of the daily challenges. And that is just in Lochmaddy.