Another Retirement

Gillespie Cameron, who has been the Postie on West Ardnamurchan for over 37 years and whose father was Postie here before him, is to retire. He announced the news last Wednesday, having just handed in his notice: he plans to finish by the end of June or some time in mid-July at the latest.

The Diary isn't sure that the community can get on without him driving his little red van around the place. It isn't simply that he's a very good Postie - The Diary had the pleasure of working with him in the Post Office here for some years, and knows how carefully and conscientiously he does his job - he's far more than that.

His round covers a wide and very wild area, along roads which are narrow and hazardous in poor weather, yet he's delivered his mail on occasions when many other Posties would probably have stayed at home in front of the fire. The remoteness of some of the locations he visits is exemplified in the story of Gillespie and the fisherman.

One winter's evening, when the weather was appalling, with a full gale blowing and heavy rain pelting down, Gillespie had stopped at the post box at Sanna. Since he was early - Gillespie never lifts the mail even two seconds before the due time, even though, at Sanna at that time, there was only one resident - he was sitting in his van when a very wet man knocked at the window. Gillespie wound down his window and asked what he wanted. 'I've been shipwrecked,' the man said. He had - his fishing boat had struck rocks but he'd managed to scramble ashore.

Gillespie has always cared about the people along his round, especially the old and vulnerable. Noticing something wrong at one address, he made his way into the house and found its occupant collapsed in a coma. Gillespie's prompt action saved the man's life and earned him a national award, presented in London - not that the retiring Gillespie attended the ceremony.

Nobody is perfect, and Gillespie has one terrible failing as a Postie: he's useless at gossip. The Diary has often moaned at him about how impossible it is to report an area like this with a Postie with such a fundamental weakness. But we are fortunate in one thing. Recently, Gillespie reduced his hours to three days a week, job-sharing with Mairi Hunter, so we already have someone who knows the work and the area. Mairi plans to increase her hours to four days a week, so there's a part-time job coming up for someone who wants it. Although it's not there yet, Royal Mail jobs are advertised here.