Sir.-Re: the post question-and-answer article in last Friday's Gazette. As an ex-postman's wife I would like to dispute a few of the answers.

The five-day week in Basingstoke has been in operation for approximately nine years and is not a recent event. The new frames have also been in for around a year in Basingstoke. Twenty-one men took early retirement/redundancy, and then there were 21 vacancies. Where is the logic of this? (Most of these were people with approximately 20 years service or more.)

The difficulties have arisen due to the sorting procedures being changed, and voluntary redundancy with effect from January 18, although they are on notice until April 3.

On January 20, most of the leavers were called back into work, as there were not enough staff to cope with the mountain of mail. The Royal Mail is having to employ casuals, ie agency staff, who don't know about the delivery of Her Majesty's mail, the areas where they are delivering and the commitment required.

I believe they should have implemented the changes first then, once running smoothly, reduced the workforce.

Most posties have a real pride in their work but this is being eroded by management decisions which have proved not to be in the public's favour, least of all the postperson's.

My husband and many of his colleagues were proud to give their customers a first-class service but recent decisions have taken this away from them - hence the reason decisions were made to leave a job that has turned sour these past few years.

Customers could set their watches by the times their post was delivered and the service they received was second to none.

Royal Mail posties were the best and it's a shame a well-known institution is being run into the ground and receiving all this adverse media interest through no fault of their ground-level workforce, because, at the end of the day, it is the posties that are getting all the stick.

We all have to move with the times - that is not disputed - but when the mail was delivered to expectations and a service provided, why change proven work practices to cause mayhem?

If the new practices don't work, then change them back to what did work - as has been done with the sorting procedure.

-Name and address withheld.

Sir.-I am writing about the post delivery in Cliddesden and the fact that, since the new system was introduced, they do not get their post until 4pm or 4.30pm.

I think it should go back to the normal times. There are businesses who used to get their post by no later than 11am.

I think it is disgraceful if they do not get any post until so late in the day.

However, I realise it will take time for the postmen to get used to the new system.

-Mrs M Legg, address supplied.

Sir.-Have the powers-that-be stopped to think that if letters of different size or weight are of different prices, it means that more people will be going to the post office just to get their letters weighed?

There will be queues for evermore.

In my younger day there were three collections a day and three deliveries a day in London, and the stamps were 2d for first class and 1d for second. There were rows of motorbikes outside the sorting office for telegram boys, which cost a little more.

This was in the '30s, before the war.

In those days, a lot more staff were employed than now, yet they still made a profit - so something is wrong somewhere.

-Mr J Hance, Rossini Close, Basingstoke.