THIS IS NOT AN OFFICIAL BOOKLET AND IT SEEKS TO COVER THOSE ASPECTS OF TPO LIFE NOT NORMALLY DEALT WITH IN OFFICIAL PUBLICATIONS. IT WAS ORIGINALLY ISSUED BY THE TPO JOINT PRODUCTION COMMITTEE AND IS ISSUED WITH GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS TO THE AUTHOR WHO HAS SPENT MANY YEARS ON THE TPOS BUT WHO PREFERS TO REMAIN ANONYMOUS.

"LIFE ON THE T.P.O."

In 1838, when the Postmaster General of that time inaugurated the first Travelling Post Office running from London to Bletchley, he set the World standard for all like developments, and though he may not have been aware of it at the time, he also brought into being a spirit of service in travelling staff which is perhaps one of the finest traditions of the present-day Postal Services. It is with a view to maintaining these traditions, and encouraging the right type of recruitment, that this pamphlet has been prepared.

If you are one of those individuals who is rapidly coming to the conclusion that his present sphere of Postal activities is over-restricted, and that a wider field for his capabilities is desired, this pamphlet is addressed to you. Read on and we shall try to list for you the 'pros' and 'cons' of a Term on the Night Mails.

We did think of doing this like a Balance Sheet, with all the advantages on one side and the disadvantages on the other, so that even the most crazy mixed-up PHG could quickly spot whether the 'cons' were over-prevalent for his taste or vice-versa, but a flaw quickly developed when we got down to the matter of 'Married Officers Opting for TPO Duties'. This is a subject on which there is a great diversity of opinion and opportunity for much heated and uninformed discussion, so in the end we decided to limit our advice to suggesting that if you're a married man, or are giving such a step serious thought, you should have a chat with the little woman before you make up your mind about travelling. You might even go over this pamphlet together.

First of all, whichever Mail you are thinking of, it will almost certainly be a Night Mail, and this will involve you in a 5-year period of liability, in which every time you go to work, it will be on a 'through-night' duty. While this may suit you all right, many wives will regard this side of life on the Iron Road with concern. In addition to this, the staff of many Mails is booked off duty at the distant point, returning to the home station on the opposite side of the Mail the following night. These Mails are known in TPO parlance as 'all-the-way' Mails. The ones which run to the distant point, returning the same night, are known as 'half-way' Mails. In short, it's exactly like a Stationary Office 'through-night' duty.

These two types of trip are so diverse in character that we'll take the risk of paraphrasing a certain well known TPO personality by saying that never was a peg so square, so uncomfortably inserted in so round a hole, as a man with a half-way complex on an all-the-way Mail; and a Normal Term of travelling is definitely a 5-year hitch.

One of the most attractive features of travelling is that it is not always required for you to make an attendance each day of the working week, as is the case in most Stationary Offices. The days or nights on which no attendance is made are known as 'rest days'. On a 'single rest' Monday, you will run into your home station Monday morning, and 'rest' till you resume on the TPO Tuesday night. Thus, you have at least 36 hours free. Similarly, on a double rest, you would be free till Wednesday night. Where 'treble rests" exist these are usually over the week-end, and you will readily see the advantage of a week-end lasting from Friday morning until Monday night.

It is difficult to generalise on this subject, as no two Mails are alike so far as in the incidence of rests is concerned. The staff of some Mails prefer to have their trips split frequently with single rests, while that of others would rather aggregate the time off and take it in double or treble rests. The one thing which is true to all mails is that the staff has to perform a sufficient average number of trips per week to bring the average weekly hours to a level with, or above, the weekly hours performed by the relative grade in the Stationary Office.

So that if the Time Value of the trip were 15 hours, an average of 3½ trips per week would not only show a most attractive rest position, but the additional hours would be paid for at overtime rates at the end of each 5-week period.

This system of payment for overtime is known as the 'Aggregation System' and, as it is rather a complicated one, we don't intend to go into it any further here. Further information can be found in the "Guide to TPO Duties".

The 15-hour trip mentioned above is a most uncommon one, and for that matter rather a fierce one, but you can see that the reward would be in a 3½-day week. All this, in fact, and aggregation too.

You will have seen from this that the rest position on the Mail on which you are going to run, is a matter of some importance, and your parent office will obtain for you any additional information you may require.

It might be as well here to make some brief mention of money, as some people are inordinately keen on the vulgar stuff. So, ------- to allowances.

The TPO Duty Allowance is designed to compensate to some degree for the loss of the amenities which are accepted as normal in the Stationary Offices, and the lack of which will be dealt with more fully in another couple of pages or so. It is subject to alteration from time to time in the same way as pay, by negotiation between the Staff Associations concerned and the Post Office, but broadly, it runs out at about 8½% of the maximum wage of the grade concerned. For a Term, or regular traveller, the allowance is paid during Annual and Sick Leave. The reserve traveller can only collect during the weeks on which he is actually travelling. If the staff of a Mail rotates on the basis of a week on the Mail and a week in the Stationary Office, the Term staff receive half the full Allowance every week, including Annual and Sick Leave.

The TPO Trip Allowance, on the other hand, is intended to deal with reasonable out-of-pocket expenses which are brought about by reason of an officer's absence from home on duty. How well it deals is, of course, a matter for the individual, but 'reasonable' is the operative word.

There are two rates for 'half-way' duties, and 3 higher rates for the 'all the way' duties, the rate being determined by the length of time the individual is away from his home station. For clearly there are likely to be greater expenses on a 24 hour trip than on a 12 hour one. The pangs of hunger are keener, for one thing.

The rates are not worth quoting here as you will know the one that applies to the TPO on which you have designs, but a comment that seems worth making is, that while the Trip Allowance is not likely to cover Grosvenor House standards, neither will those of Rowton House be necessary.

TPO men usually put up at a private house or small hotel which has accommodated TPO staff for years. The proprietors usually have learned to understand and appreciate us and it has been known for the landlady to shed a bitter tear when her "oldest inhabitant" has "gone in against a vacancy" in the Stationary Office; but that was an extreme case and our personal experience is that we have had no such luck. In any event, your "digs" are your personal concern and responsibility - although you will find that the Mail Representative is always willing to fix you up with an address at the start of your travelling. A word of warning here: if you have asked the "Mail Rep" to fix you up, don't let him down. Make sure you use the accommodation he has booked for you.

You will know that you have to undergo a Medical Examination before taking up duties on the TPO, and the reason for this is that health standards must be no less than robust in order to stand up to the rigours of travelling. Winter on the Mails usually brings a number of heating failures combined with delay and protracted trips through fog and snow, and a man must have sound health and a good temper to come through these trials unscathed.

The Post Office Doctor has a very difficult task here, as, while it is a relatively simple matter for an experienced Medical man to count a chap's legs and rule him out should he be one short, it's another thing entirely to diagnose an ulcer, for instance, if a chap refuses to admit to it. So be frank with your Doc: if your constitution is anything less than robust, leave the TPO's alone.

The general working conditions on the Mails could come as something of a surprise to you, particularly if you are one of those who like a certain degree of comfort in their surroundings. The largest carriages are about 63 ft. long (some are shorter) and it is by no means uncommon to have as many as 14 people working in a 63 footer. And that isn't counting that infuriating chap who always seems to be in the lavatory when you want to get in. So the thing you must do is to abandon all those poignant memories of Stationary Office comfort. Armchairs in the retiring-room or, for that matter, even a retiring-room, are no longer for you. These standards just don't apply any more, for the simple reason that we are on a Travelling Post Office and scope for welfare as well as for other things, is restricted.

We do make tea though; in fact it seems to be made about every 20 minutes on some TPO's, and if we can revert to the bit on 'robust health' for a moment, the tea (for such is how they laughingly refer to the hell-brew) on many Mails we know would lift the lining off the boilers of the Ark Royal.

The general drill when the tea-man comes round is that if you think the duty can stand it, you clear a little space on the sorting table bed, and break off in the midst of all your worries for as short a time as is necessary to drink it. If on the other hand the duty can't stand it, you sip your tea and plough on with the job at the same time, nibbling a moody sandwich the while.

Meal reliefs as you know them are not taken on a TPO. An allowance of 30 minutes for every 4 hours travelling is made for a PHG, and this is added to the end of the duty, the total being known as the Time Value. On some 'half-way' duties a meal relief is taken at the distant point, in which case it does not of course come into the Time Value. An interesting historical point here is that Time Value was abbreviated to TV about a hundred years before television was thought of.

Where a heavy duty can be anticipated, pressure staff is normally provided, but on occasion such anticipation is not possible. In a Stationary Office in these circumstances, it is usually possible to augment the staff on the Division under pressure from another Division, but on a TPO it is often the case that the whole Mail is under pressure at the same time, and that is the time when the TPO men come into their own. For the old stage-coach tradition 'the Mail must go through', still applies on the TPO's. One of the rules in the TPO Rule Book which is never broken, is the one to the effect that a failure of duty is to be avoided at all costs, and that in the event of a failure being inevitable, every effort should be made to reduce it to the minimum. There will be trips when you will be sorting at a speed far in excess of that which is comfortable, and there will be the sneaking thought that there just aren't enough minutes left till running-in time. And then the train will slow down or stop for a signal, giving you just the 5 additional minutes you require, and when you stagger off, a bit sticky perhaps (as you shan't have had time to wash), it'll be in a glow that can only come from the satisfaction of a good job well done. With, maybe, the extra wonder of having done the impossible again.

In the light of the foregoing, we're beginning to wonder why we joined ourselves. But, on reflection, there are a lot of reasons. Prestige: the knowledge of being a member of an elite corps of sorters working on a National network, a brotherhood with all the accents of Dover, Newcastle, Penzance, Inverness, and all points between. Nothing but the best will do for a TPO man. And when, in the fullness of time you find yourself in a Sorting Office and someone says, "Oh, you're a TPO man - you'll know this one"; the satisfaction of not being as other men. There's a certain reaction, of course, if it happens to be some incredible place that circulates on Auchtertool or somewhere; particularly if the unadventurous Stationary Office man next to you does know it.

Or on a social occasion when the comely lass on whom you are trying to make an impression asks how you earn your living. Everybody knows what a sorter does, but a TPO is rather different. The lies you can tell!

If we had been asked to write a book on TPO's, it would have been a relatively simple matter, and certainly a very pleasant task. We should have strung together some of the hundreds of tales that travellers and ex-travellers tell in taverns from Penzance to Inverness. We might have selected the rather grim one of the night the Down Special ran into a snow-drift on the Beattock summit and stayed there for 30 hours without heating. Or, in rather lighter vein, the one about ................

But our purpose has been a more serious one. The pamphlet has been designed to give as clear a picture of the facts of life on the Night Mails as possible, and if we have succeeded in what we set out to do, you will no longer have any doubt in your mind as to whether or not it is the job for you.

If the dark grey patches have presented too black a pattern in your mind, the TPO's are clearly not your style, and it's as well you saw the red light. If, on the other hand, your Parker 51 is already poised in your hot sticky little hand in readiness to sign on, we're glad to have you with us. You'll find your reward in a spirit of cameraderie that is seldom encountered in the other branches of the Service; in friendships which will long outlive your service on the Mails; and when you become an ex-TPO man, in a wealth of experience and a fund of memories unlikely to be acquired elsewhere.

The very best of luck to you.