A Christmas kiss

Pauline Josephs recalls being the centre of attention in a room of men...

hen I was W 17 and still at school, I worked at the main post office in the run up to Christmas. The sortingoffice was swamped with Christmas post and I applied for the night-shift, because my elder sister, a university student, was already there.

Looking back, I can’t believe my overprotective father allowed me to do it; he must have thought his girls would be working side by side... he was wrong! Although we travelled together on the bus, she worked elsewhere, sorting overseas letters and parcels. We only met again in the early morning, on the bus back home.

There was no automation, no postcodes and no second-class stamps – everything was sorted by hand. I loved working alongside grown-ups; it was exciting to be treated like an adult instead of a schoolgirl. Because I went to a girls’ school, where all the teachers were women, it was an eye-opener to be working with men. The older men were very kind to that shy 17-year-old and were amused by my inability to throw parcels into the right sacks – no-one seemed to mind retrieving them. For the first time in my life, I there was no hanky-panky and no swearing (in my presence, anyway).

I was surrounded by men and loving it: you didn’t have to be clever, you didn’t have to pass exams, you just had to smile a lot. I wanted to work in the sorting-office for the rest of my life! And then, it got even better. A tall young man called Ron appeared at my side, taught me to improve my aim with the Christmas parcels and brought me tea in stained cups.

On my last night there he invited me to go for a walk. The night streets were empty and it was just starting to snow, small flakes like white feathers that melted on the pavement. We held hands; it felt strange, but exciting. We sat on a damp bench looking at the Christmas decorations and the stars and sharing our dreams for the future: Ron wanted to be a postman with his own route and I wanted to be a librarian. And then we had our first and last kiss, knowing we’d probably never see each other again. Such a gentle memory.

Over the years, The Post Office became Royal Mail, postcodes became the norm and sorting was done by machine. But that kiss was something new and magical for us both, snow floating around us and Christmas lights flickering on our faces. For an unforgettable moment, Ron and I were the only two people in the world.