Changing way of life
Many soldiers returning home after World War I found that the life they knew before they went away had changed. Edgar (Eddie) Hook was one of these soldiers.
Before being sent overseas to Egypt in November, 1917, Hook was a rural delivery mailman.
He had started at the age of 16 in 1913 with his first route being from Porirua to Johnsonville but eventually delivered mail to the Takapu, Newlands and Ohariu Valley areas.
He would finish his mail round by mid- afternoon and then deliver telegrams, regardless of the weather.
When he returned from the war in 1919, the rural delivery service had been stopped. Hook was given a supervisory role at the Johnsonville Post Office but found it didn’t suit him as he felt there was never enough for him to do.
His story first appeared in Kapi-Mana News in 1965 and the reporter noted that Hook ‘‘always liked to recall his days as rural-delivery postman with obvious enjoyment’’.
Hook went on to run a butchers business with his brother Alex, named Hook Bros, based in Linden, where they also had a slaughterhouse.
Hook married May Victoria Bradey, from Paremata, in 1928, and they settled in Oxford St, Tawa. He died in 1973. For more information contact Porirua Library’s local heritage librarian Ruth Barrett, rbarrett@pcc.govt.nz.