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Posties draw short straw for hospice

by Tom Rowley
2/ 4/2008

THREE posties wore shorts while delivering mail during the coldest five months of the year to raise cash for a children’s hospice.

Goose pimples held no fears for Nick Burt, John Fogg and Sue Grimshaw who forsook long trousers and wore summer shorts from October through to March.

Driver Tony McIntyre and colleague Tim Bradbury also donned shorts in the fundraising effort which drummed up £6,000 for Francis House in Didsbury.

The Tameside quintet all work out of the delivery office on Saxon Street, Denton.

Mr Burt said: "We usually work 6am to 2pm and we’re out in all sorts – snow, wind and rain. It was freezing and very wet, but you just had to get on with it because it was for such a good cause."

Their boss Lee McGowan said the fund-raising effort has been ‘unbelievable’ through the worst of the British weather.

"I work indoors because I am the manager here. But they were out freezing like nothing in a pair of shorts in all weathers: hail, sleet and snow and when it’s been minus five. They’ve all been awesome," he said.

Royal Mail bosses have agreed to match the £6,000 they raised. Help the Hospices has been Royal Mail Group’s major supported charity for the last three years – with a target of raising £1m – and has been the postmark on 33m letters every week.