Postman Pat and the slow death of the postal service

Postman Pat has moved on a lot since I was a kid. There’s the whole thing where he is married with a kid now (not enough to stop those rumours about him and Ted), but the show has also moved with the times politically.

Now, I’ve not seen Pat on the picket line but the newest Postman Pat series, Special Delivery Service sees Pat face the reality of life in the dying days of the postal service. He now commutes from Greendale to the nearest big town. From here the mail service is run on an industrial scale, and Pat’s job is no longer to be an affable fixture of village life. This Postman Pat is not a constant in a world that changes too fast. He's not an affable local character, not a valued public servant—Pat is here to provide premium delivery services.

Mrs Goggins has been moved to the periphery of the mail story (they haven’t yet, as far as I know, closed her post office but surely it must be constantly under threat). This is Postman Pat as delivered by Consignia, it is very much a sign of our times and actually I find it all quite poignant. Pat is now something of a superhero, but like all the best superheroes you feel that behind the mask there is darkness, sadness, and tragedy.

I can tell that Pat is afraid for his village, for the community, for Mrs Goggin’s post office, afraid of the very death of the English countryside as its vitality is sucked towards the bright lights of the big towns. But he’s trapped – trapped by a duty to get the mail delivered on time (whatever that may mean now) and trapped by the need to put food on the table for the family he possibly never really wanted.

Perhaps Pat should have gone on that picket line after all when he still had the chance, but it’s too late now and he must muddle through trying to make the best of his new reality.

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